The Trip
by HappierThanMost
Summary: For Soda Curtis, life was always supposed to be a journey, but never a simple one.
1. Chapter 1

**THE TRIP**

PART I

" _Pony, that trash ain't gonna walk out to the curb on its own," Darry's nagging again as he moves all over the kitchen wiping down counters. "Tomorrow's trash day so I need it out there tonight."_

 _I'm at the table, picking carefully at an old bandaid, at its dirty, curling edges, but there's more than enough adhesive to hold fast and pull my arm's tiny hairs, so I'm doing this methodically. I've always hated bandaid removal, and Soda's sitting across from me instructing, "You gotta rip it off quick Pony. It's the only way." I'm ignoring him, thinking about wetting a paper towel to aid in my process and Darry's shaking his head, probably undone because I've turned something else simple into another "process."_

 _Mom understood. She'd have me in the bathroom right now, pressing a warm wet washcloth firmly against my bandage while she removed it ever so slowly, tenderly. But that was then, and all I have now are two tough older brothers, whose idea of nurturing is to tell you to suck it up. Even Soda. He just tells you in a gentler way. "You know slow is more painful right?" he asks and when I look up at him I notice his eyes have quickly darted up, like he's looking at something over my head. He blinks and they're now locked back in with mine._

 _Before I can say "what" my bandaid flies off with a yank and every arm hair in the vicinity has been violently ripped from their rightful home. The burn is a shock and I hiss through my teeth. "Damnit Darry," I say looking behind me and there he stands with the blood stained bandaid and a triumphant smile._

" _See? It's all over. Gotta be quick about it," he says like a know it all, and sends the filthy thing sailing through the air into the trash bag. Soda's nodding his head in agreement, while I'm rubbing my arm, surveying the damage, careful of my scab._

 _"Maybe y'all like quick, but that's not how I do things," I say in feeble protest and march off to the bathroom, wondering if the tears in my eyes are really from my stinging arm._

I'm smiling a little as I think back on that moment, back to that aching boy I was, with a feeling that's close to fondness. Seems like yesterday and now, all these nights later, my brother is still giving me the same advice. "You gotta break it off now Pony. Do it quick, like you're ripping off a bandaid."

I look over at Soda in the driver's seat, his long hair whipping on a sixty mile per hour gust blasting through these open windows. Still with his beard, he looks like like he walked off some hippie commune, and he's doing about a thousand other things besides paying attention to the road. One hand holds the steering wheel and a cigarette that's just about to burn down to the two fingers it rests between. His other hand is fiddling with the radio when it's not shifting gears, and he refuses every song that's being played tonight so the deafening noise is the rushing wind and the radio's constant crackle. "You're too young to be tied down."

"I already did," I assure him. "Right before I left." It had been a civil conversation. We both were ready to go our separate ways, but no breakup can be called pleasant. So I'm now home from school for a long Thanksgiving weekend ready to hang out with my brothers and hit the town as a single guy. We're headed for Pauly's, where Darry plans to join us after he finishes his shift, and I'm excited to kick back with the two people I can be myself with. I've survived midterms, a nasty bout with the flu, a snoring roommate, and it's almost sad how a little thing like a private shower seems a luxury to me now.

"Atta-boy, Pone. These are the best years of your life," and he flicks his smoke out the window, his short sleeve riding up to reveal his Army tattoo. And suddenly I'm aware that my best years don't hold the magic they should. How could they possibly be the best when my brother struggles to find himself after he was lost somewhere in Vietnam?

When I left Darry and Soda at the end of the summer, we were all three basking in the glow of a soldier returning to his family. All those endless nights we faithfully prayed hadn't been in vain. And we were more than happy to ignore the many vices that Soda had taken on to escape the memories that were haunting him. We were the lucky ones this time. Why go messing this up by holding someone accountable, pointing fingers at addictive and erratic behaviors? We found comfort and still find comfort in the fact he's far better than most.

Soda is a professional when it comes to accepting and dealing with pain. There's no one more suited for trudging through that vile and nasty swamp. He'll always find a way to get by. And, above all this, he's alive and fucking breathing. Should we dare to want more?

So, Darry hid his head in the sand, I went off to college to hide my head in the books, and Soda worked to contain his oozing torment by arranging all of his bandaids one by one, perfectly lining them up to cover those gaping wounds. My brothers may talk a big game, but when it comes down to it, none of us have the balls it takes to rip any of them off, quickly or otherwise.

"It's a little cold for the windows down tonight ain't it?" I question, pulling Darry's old baseball hat from the dashboard and tugging it firmly on my head. "It's November and you're in flip flops, " I point down below the ragged hem of his beat-up jeans to his mostly naked feet pressing on the gas and clutch, as if he isn't aware of his choice of footwear.

"Warm and cold is only a matter of the mind, Pony," he says while tapping his finger to his temple, and I pull out a cigarette, banking on that to warm me up.

When we find a parking spot outside Pauly's, a dive that has seen far better days, we pull out our wallets and try to arrange everything so I can enter the bar. I stuff my student ID and driver's license behind my wad of cash and he hands me his old one. Since his new license picture is bearded like him, it makes this even more passable. I may not look much like Soda's old photo, but I resemble it more than he does himself now.

We grab our cigarettes and head across the puddled parking lot. Somehow Soda keeps his feet dry, walking in an awkward zig zag fashion to avoid the leftover, stagnant rain water.

Turns out it's Pauly himself working tonight and he knows us. He'd never question my age and we're in without a hitch. Half the crowd turns to watch us grab a beer and claim a pool table. I'm pretty sure Soda gets this wherever he goes, but I'm not used to it, and I marvel at how he's completely unaware of the stares or maybe he just doesn't give a shit. I guess I'd watch him too if I didn't know him. Hell, I'm staring at him right now as he racks up the balls and easily breaks with an explosive crack, sending the table into colored chaos. "I'll take solids," he says with focus, and he eases me out of his way for a better shot.

After a couple of games where we each claim a win, Soda steps out to the back alley to take some hits off his pocketed joint. I'm knocking some balls around for practice when Pauly calls out "Curtis. Phone for ya."

And with one short phone call, a list of reasons and something that resembles an apology, Darry has bailed on us. Soda saunters back to the pool table and I announce our brother's most recent lameness.

His eyes are a bit foggy, but a smile is starting slow and ending huge. "So Darry's out huh?" He takes his beer bottle and clinks it weakly against mine. "Then let's blow this joint. I know where there's a real party."

This time I'm driving; Soda was more than willing to hand over his keys and now he sits with his knees bent up and his feet resting on the dash. I order him to roll up his window and to keep his grubby hands off the radio dial. We've settled on a good station and it doesn't get better than this, as we fly through the dark and winding streets to some crazy destination. Soda gives directions intermittently through our conversations about anything and everything. And tonight, as I look over at my brother, he's the same relaxed Soda I've always known. Maybe things are starting to turn around. I might be a little uneasy to go to this hangout that's obviously not your average hoedown, but I think it's a good sign he's wanting to bring me. It can't be that bad.

Tonight, with Darry out of the picture, we're reminded of another time, another season, and now we're laughing at the memories of our Oil Rig Summer, as we like to call it. The summer Darry left most nights, and Soda let us both run free. I was relieved when it ended, but now we love to look back on how much we got away with. It's one of the many things that strengthen the close bond we share. "We're bringing it back tonight Pony!" Soda shouts while drumming on his knees. "Oil Rig Summer. Just you and me!"

And we share a smile and I shake my head. "You are one strange cat," I chuckle with the love of a brother, and from the corner of my eye I can see he's still looking over at me with his head turned, leaned against the seat.

In one fluid motion he turns down the radio with his toes and starts to sing the Doors. "People are strange, when you're a stranger. Faces look ugly, when you're alone."

I jump in on his fun, doing my best Morrison imitation. "Women seem wicked when you're unwanted," but I notice Soda's smile fading and his eyes grow a bit pensive when he finishes softly, "Streets are uneven when you're down." My heart clenches a little, because he's taken this song that sounds like it's out of some warped carnival and perhaps found what it's really trying to say.

I'm used to Soda's up and down spirits and I steer the conversation to his friends we're about to visit. He doesn't miss a beat and joins right back into discussion as if the song was sung by someone else, some person no longer a passenger in this car.

"They ain't the kinda hippies you're thinkin' of. In fact, I wouldn't call'em that. They don't protest or blame soldiers or spit at'em. They just like peace and hell, I do too," he explains while he lights up his half-smoked weed. "They just like to sit around and appreciate the songs."

He's read my apprehension when we pull up to the weathered clapboard house, complete with boarded windows and wild vines crawling up to swallow it down. I park the car and he puts his hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry. I ain't trippin' on anything tonight," he assures me. "Just gonna smoke a lil grass and listen to the tunes. You're still down to get stoned right?"

And although I most certainly am, I feel uncomfortable doing this alongside Soda, who's in the midst of a battle with drugs much heavier. I'm knowing what Darry would say. But I go against him and answer, "Sure."

As we approach the door he tells me, "These people are nice, but they're fuckin' wackos," and he passes the dwindling joint for me to take its last hit. I have to look down a smidge at his scarred eyebrow, and it sometimes startles me to stand next to him now; I've finally passed his height and I guess it's surprising because Soda just seems larger in every single way. "C'mon," he admonishes taking the joint and crushing it. "Time's a wastin'."

And without a knock he pulls me into the thick, mingling smells of patchouli, incense and weed, and the dark labyrinth of The Doors, the Stones, and Jefferson Airplane.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton, People are Strange by the Doors.


	2. Chapter 2

**THE TRIP**

PART II

We walk into an altered universe of hanging tapestries, muted colors of light from lamps blanketed over with flowing fabrics, scattered psychedelic posters and a constant sound of bubbling water. As soon as we enter, everyone seems friendly, very warm and accepting of my brother, but that's no surprise. They all take interest once Soda introduces me as his brother. Seems like they're names are all either Flower or Indigo, and for once, nobody questions "Ponyboy."

"Far out!", says the littlest, cutest girl in the room as she's walking over. "My name's Patty," she says with her hand extended.

Soda puts his arm around her shoulders while I'm taking her hand in mine. "This here's Pattycake," Soda says smiling and she corrects him, looking into my eyes.

"It's just Patty, really." She has a sweet voice.

"She's real friendly, Pony," he goes on ignoring her. Once Soda gives you a nickname you're stuck with it. "Y'all would get along. She ain't much younger than you. She goes to that girls school across from the Piggly Wiggly on Fourth…Our Lady of Sorrows," he snaps his finger when he remembers the name.

Once again, Patty must interject on her own life story that's being told by Soda. "Our Lady of Mercy," she says, feigning exasperation, and giving him a nudge.

And still, Soda goes on. "Pattycake's a good little Catholic girl, Pony." And he finally finishes up with a hidden wink. Soda always loved the girls from the Catholic schools back in the day. Not sure if it was their faith or those little plaid skirts. Both, I guess.

"A Catholic school girl hippie, huh?" I question her. "Now that's something you don't see every day, Patty," and by her blushing face, I can tell she's undone by my attention.

The night sets off in a blur of smoke and sounds. Many people are sitting on the floor listening, or I should say feeling the music. Some pass around the gurgling hookah of hash, and some just stare at nothing because the acid they dropped is starting to take hold. Soda and I move about and mingle, helping ourselves to the large quantity of pot brownies that's out for anyone's taking. We would never pass on chocolate. And many are gathering around Soda like bees to a hive. He seems to be the token soldier here. The guy who danced at both ends of the spectrum and lived to tell the world to choose love over war.

We settle around a table passing a joint with a group of mostly guys, every one of them resembling John Lennon or Abbie Hoffman. They throw out ideas about the government's conspiracy theories, the brilliance of Timothy Leary, and how one of their friends made the trip to New York for Woodstock last August, but ended up taking the brown acid and still hasn't recovered.

Soda remembers I had begged him to make that trip all summer. "I told you that was a bad idea, Pony," he says pointing his finger at me. I highly doubt I'd have taken the brown acid or any other color, so I still feel let down we didn't go. Everybody who's anybody performed that weekend.

More people enter the kitchen and gather around us, trying to decide if Soda and I look alike and nobody can agree on a final decision, and I start to feel like we're livestock being judged at the county fair. Some crazy chick announces we have the same aura and everybody seems satisfied with that answer. "Did ya hear that Pony? We got the same aura," he says with a lopsided grin, his fingers forming air quotes and then he makes crazy eyes at me.

Patty is never far from my view all night. She's cool enough but I'm not here to pick up anybody. Just here to hang with Soda. To reach him, to find him somewhere in the middle of his chaos.

After about an hour Soda and I are so stoned, we mainly just ignore everyone and look at each other and laugh, since we both find the same things funny with hardly a word. He gets me so going at one point, I'm crying and laughing simultaneously, with no sound but wheezing and a snort here and there. I just sit with my hands over my face, convulsing in my chair for a good five minutes. My pleas for him to stop go unanswered, and that's what makes Soda so funny. He never quits and just keeps pounding it home, enjoying every moment of my painful hysterics.

But suddenly it all shuts off and I lean forward to grab his arm. All the laughs inside me have escaped, and left me with nothing but concern. I search Soda's eyes and he sees how serious I've become. He puts his own hand on the top of my arm, mirroring me. I know I've spent the last months afraid to rock his boat, the one he built to stay afloat. The thought of addressing his scary behaviors petrifies me. I've been reluctant to tug at his bandages, so worried the rip will hurt him. But this feels like my only window. And I'm even more terrified of having this opportunity pass on by.

"Soda, please stop doing this." And I know he's immediately aware of what I'm talking about. His face softens and his eyes look to me in sympathy, my mother's eyes. He's more worried about me being worried.

"It's just an escape, Pony. Just for a little bit. It ain't gonna last long," he assures me with a soft and pacifying voice. And he's so good at that, I find myself properly soothed, even though he hasn't agreed to quit any of this. That's his magic.

"Don't escape.. from me, ever. Ok?" I need him to promise me that. At least.

"Ain't nothing happening tonight," is all he says, because Soda won't make a promise he can't keep. Not to me, anyway.

He's now talking to a guy named Woody and just like that the moment has passed. I didn't get far with him, but I at least broached the subject and lived. And Soda seemed receptive to me, willing to address it, never denying his behaviors were destructive and abnormal. I make a note to discuss this with Darry, leaving out the stoned part, of course. Maybe we could work as a team and tackle this head-on. Maybe Soda would be clean by the end of the year, and ring in the new decade with a clear head.

Feeling a bit lighter, I talk some more to Patty, who's a senior and ready to break out of school and hit the road across America. Wants to land in San Francisco and really find herself. Soda cuts in and asks her with genuine care and concern. "How do you not know yourself Pattycake? You've lived inside your body everyday of your life, darlin'." I give her a look that says don't even try with him.

Just then the most beautiful woman I've ever seen up close walks in the room like she owns the place, and my eyes about pop out of my head. She talks to the huge gathering of guys by the keg before she heads to our side of the room, and I notice Soda doesn't pay an ounce of attention. She brings her cool confidence right along with her, and you can tell she knows how to work a room, and that she isn't wearing a bra.

"Well if it isn't ole Sodapop. Who's your friend?" She's eyeing me up and down and I can't stop myself from doing the same.

"Gloria, this is Ponyboy, my brother." Soda's not very friendly and I can tell something's gone down between them.

"Right on, I didn't know you had a brother," she says to Soda and then to me, "everybody just calls me Glory."

I stand to formally introduce myself. "Two," Soda corrects her, "two brothers, actually."

Glory's mouth turns up and her slow smile is dangerous and sexy. "There are three Curtis brothers?" she says in an exaggerated Southern drawl. "My oh my. Then there really is a God."

The night progresses and I'm losing track of time and the gift of speech really, when Glory suggests we head back somewhere private. I know Soda and I need to get home to Darry and I have no clue if that's even possible at this point. Soda's enjoying a wild and heated game of beer pong and I watch him pump his fist in victory when his ball hits the target, sloshing beer all over the table and sticky floor. I guess we'll figure something out after I go see what Glory wants to show me and I'm fairly certain it has to be fascinating. As we exit the room I don't miss the defeated look on Patty's face and I actually feel guilty. But, not enough to turn back.

As soon as the door closes, Glory has let her thin, loose straps fall down her shoulders, and her entire shirt cascades to the floor. Under my breath I can't help but say, "Glory, hallelujah." She is standing before me topless, and I guess this is what they mean by the sexual revolution and free love. Is it really this easy? Her body is breathtaking and I finally reach her eyes and give her an appreciative smile.

I'm no virgin, and by now I'm fairly comfortable when it comes to taking the initiative, making the move. So I go in for the embrace, the kiss, but I'm surprised she takes the reins right from my hands and she's the one in control. Which is more than okay, but it feels a little weird, like I don't know what to do with my hands anymore. We drop to the bed and she's undoing my button, tugging at my zipper, and I try to forget about my hands and just let her do it all. She reaches down smooth and right into my underwear and I begin to relax as the feelings take hold.

I'm broken from my trance when her other hand comes up and she slips a finger into my mouth, gently pressing down on my tongue. Something ain't right when I taste something bitter, feel something thin and papery. I pull her finger out and the strip's been left in. My confused tongue's trying to determine this foreign object while its dissolving and I can't help but swallow against the metallic taste. My stomach drops when I realize what she's done.

I bring up both hands to grip my hair but find my hat's still on, so I toss it hard and ask in despair, "What the fuck did you give me?"

She throws her head back and laughs and I'm wondering if she's some kind of witch. "Ponyboy, calm down," she says condescendingly. "I gave you a really good hit so we can have some actual fun. You can't tell me you're Sodapop's brother and you're a square."

"I am! I'm very much a square, Glory. Hell, I'm the squarest of the squares. The motherfucking king of squares!" I'm starting to lose it as I sit up and button my pants. My breathing starts to get fast as I think about how much time I have before the acid starts to take effect. "Go get Soda, right now, " and she immediately obeys, seeing how furious I am. She exits the room quickly, grabbing her top, and I should feel bad I just yelled at a woman right after her hand was on me, but I don't give a shit.

I'm already feeling weird and lie back down. I look up to the ceiling and my hands cover my face while I think about Darry. This could be the end of us. Thank God I'm stoned still, which is taking some of the edge off. I'm worrying I won't come back from a trip I never wanted to take. What if I have some reaction that leaves me insane? I've heard about cases like that. For the first time in a long time, I'm truly frightened. And panic is starting to rise.

I hear fast footsteps and Soda's voice coming up the hall and I feel a bit of relief. He bursts through the door and hurries to sit right beside me, examining my eyes. "It's gonna be okay, Pony. I promise." He's already in comfort mode, knowing full well I'm losing my mind over this. "It's just one hit, not a big deal. You're just gonna go on a little journey's all, and I'm gonna be right here the whole time. Nothing's gonna happen to you," he says like I'm just headed one town over. He sighs and looks at me, "I'm sorry we came tonight. This is all my fault."

Just then I notice Patty's also in the room when she stands by Soda looking down at me, and unfortunately I'm not out of it enough yet to escape being highly aware of how embarrassed I am in front of her.

"Pony, it'll be okay. Soda's the perfect person to have with you," she assures me like some nurse. "In fact, everybody likes to trip while they're around Soda. He's the best at giving off positive vibes and making everybody's trip really awesome." She says this like he's some guru, and although I appreciate her support, I mostly just feel like I'm in the twilight zone.

Soda catches my discomfort and thankfully says, very kindly, "Pattycake, why don't you run on home. I think Pony don't want an audience and anyways, it's late. Your daddy's gotta be wondering about you."

She smiles and pats my hand before she leaves and I find myself wishing I'd stayed with her all night.

I sit up against the headboard and bite my nail. "Soda, what if I go crazy and try and jump out a window? I've heard about people doing that."

He smiles at this and says "I'd never let that happen. I'll strap you down before I let that happen," and he chuckles.

"Strap me down?" I cry, horrified. "That's my worst fucking nightmare."

"Okay, I'll lay on top of you. You aint' going nowhere but this room. This," and he's looking around at the shitty surroundings, "this lovely and very safe room." He annunciates safe. "But I don't have much time to tell you so listen up."

And that's when I hear the eerie start to White Rabbit coming from the front room. This song has always creeped me out anyway. The haunting vocals going on about Alice and the bizarre happenings of Wonderland. Even as a child that book bugged me. And right now, _One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small. And the ones that_ _Mother gives you don't do anything at all_ is starting to mess with my mind. I feel paranoia really kicking in. But I lean in close to try and concentrate on what Soda's about to say.

"There are good trips and there are bad trips. The good news is you're in charge. If you just relax Pony, you have to man, you can run with it and have a good ole time. But if you ain't in a good head space, we got trouble." He looks hard at me, as if he can will me to suddenly be okay with having absolutely zero control of myself. He taps his finger to his head. "Mind control."

"Don't tell me that Soda. I'll start freaking out if you tell me to relax. And what are we gonna do about Darry?" My lips are getting numb and my tongue is thick. Things are looking wavy.

The last thing I hear from Soda is, "Pony, I'm taking care of it. You gotta relax man, for once in your life, just let go."

But I know I can't. I'm not that kind of person and I already know the way this trip is gonna go down as all the things that could possibly go wrong start zipping through my head at warped speed, but they slow down long enough in my mind's eye for me to see every detail. My bloody body on a sidewalk of broken glass, me choking on my own vomit, Soda getting blown up in a jungle, my parents flying out of car windows, mangled and torn.

I'm wishing I could tell Soda to make them turn off this song but I can't find words anymore and I know they're singing about me anyway. _When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead_ , and I'm having trouble breathing as the song rises up and up and takes me with it. _And the white knight is talking backwards and the red queen's off with her head._

I'm officially in a spiral of panic when I can only see Soda's mouth move. I can't hear him, but he's holding my hand. The music is deafening and I'm inside the song. _Remember what the dormouse said_. I'm trying and I can't remember what the dormouse said. I can't remember what Soda said to do, how to act, how to breathe, who I am.

I feel my body explode into lights and sound and the furniture isn't solid. I think I might slide through the mattress. Soda's eyes are blinding lights but they're looking at me concerned. And his finger sweeps through my mouth and I gag on it and the whole world is bright white and I'm gone by the time Grace is shouting _Feed your head._

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton, White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane


	3. Chapter 3

**THE TRIP**

PART III

If someone had told me this morning Ponyboy Curtis was gonna drop acid tonight, I'd have said there was a greater chance he'd walk on the moon. Scratch that. Knowing Pony, he'll probably get there one day. Let's just say it wasn't on the menu.

And now here we are. He's gripping my hand so tight, it's that pinpricking kinda numb. But I don't dare move it. I'm filled with a burning hatred for myself. I can't believe I've let this happen. I'm talking to Pony now with an air of calm confidence, but on the inside I'm in a raging war with myself. He's about to hit full on panic mode and I'm such a drugged up loser for even bringing him here in the first place, and then not to look out for him? He worries he'll jump out a window. Well, that's exactly where I'm headed if anything ever happens to him. But tonight, I know he'll be safe; it ain't like he won't recover. I just wish I could assure him of that. I see the fear in his eyes and I want to save him from all this.

Except for maybe Darry, Pony's probably the worst person for an LSD trip. His mind is so full of wild imaginations, gifted creativity, and that'll be his downfall. If he wasn't fighting it tooth and nail, he could have the best, most freeing experience of his life. But I know Pony, and he needs control. He's battling against a drug that's always gonna win, one that beats you down into submission, and if you aren't a good little boy and accept your fate, it's gonna punish you with the most demented images you've ever witnessed. His brain will become his own worst enemy. And I bet that boy's mind can come up with some twisted, fucked up shit.

The White Rabbit is getting under my skin while I watch Pony start to drift away from me, and I wish someone would turn it down. I keep telling him to relax. To think happy thoughts, just praying he can't read mine. This song is about to give me a near flashback, since it was played often in my platoon. I can still smell the burning, still feel the needle. It took four people to hold me down that night. While this played in the background.

Pony's jerk brings me back to this dirty bedroom outside Tulsa and I'm looking at him closely. He seems like he isn't blinking. Or breathing. I tap him lightly on the cheek to get him to remember how, but all I notice is a line of drool coming out of the side of his mouth. Worried he's choking on something, I immediately grab his face to force his mouth open and take my finger, sweeping it all around looking for anything that might be blocking his airway. I go deep enough that he gags and by just that reflex he starts breathing heavy so I'm satisfied with that. My racing heart returns to a more normal pace. This is gonna be a long night and I'm cursing all the pot that's weighing down my eyelids.

Glory strolls in like she didn't just drug my brother out of his mind, and tries to make light of things as she reaches down and picks up Pony's hat and slips it on. "Soda, you keep gagging that brother of yours, you're gonna give him a bad trip." My silent glare clues her in to my fury, and she's quick to say, "Hey, I didn't know he wasn't down for it. I figured he was just like you."

"No, he's not down for this, Gloria," I say sharply and then softly to myself, "He's the good one," and I wipe his hair off his forehead and notice how it kicks out in tufts everywhere.

She has the nerve to waltz over to me like she's some prize and starts to massage my shoulders. I duck forward, wriggling to escape her touch. "Get the hell outta here." I want to tell her to go fuck herself all the way to hell, but I can't bring myself to. Not after I actually did fuck her all the way to hell most of last summer. She walks off saying she'll see me when I come back crawling, and I call out, "You can leave the hat," which she throws at my head. It's Darry's favorite hat and the least we can do is not lose it after all this.

Darry. I'm trying to decide how best to deliver this news. I decide to call him now while Pony's still fairly calm, so I grab a lava lamp from the far corner and put it on the floor next to the mattress. "Hey Pony, check this out. Look real close."

And he seems content to stare at the floating globs of blue and green and just repeats "I think I'm dead" over and over.

I run for the hall phone and dial up Darry, timing out the rings it takes for him to wake up, drag his ass out of bed and down the hall, through the living room. I'm pretty damn close with my timing cause he picks up just when I thought he would. "Mm," is his standard after-hours growl, and if I wasn't so nervous I'd shame him for his phone manners like he always did us.

"Darry, everything's fine." Not a good way to start. Darry's already off and running.

"Soda, what do you mean everything's fine?" he says in his stern voice. "Why wouldn't it be?" Guardian Darry has replaced the sleeping bear, and he probably wouldn't be this way if I didn't have Pony with me. Darry's been hands off where I'm concerned, letting me drift since I came home. And while I'm thankful, cause it's saved us a lot of fights, I miss having someone tell me no. "I thought y'all were down the damn hall, sleeping in your damn beds. Where's Pony?"

"Here with me," I say in a pleasant tone. "But we're probably gonna spend the night out."

"Oh ya think? It's already…4:20. I'm pretty sure that's what y'all just did." This is going nowhere and I know I'm gonna tell him the truth. I'm just tossing it around in my mind to come up with the best presentation. "So," Darry says in a calmer tone. "You need me to come pick you up? Where y'all at and please don't tell me the station."

"No, Darry, we're out at the farm." Darry already knows I come here all the time and though he's not said a word, I can tell he hates it.

After a long pause he says, "Put Pony on the phone."

So, this is it. This is where I give it all up. And I have to go balls in cause I'm running out of time and I think I just heard a thud coming from the bedroom. This ain't gonna be pretty. "Darry, Pony was given a hit of LSD. Without his permission. He's okay, he's just unavailable at the moment. Now don't start worrying; I'm gonna keep an eye on him till he comes off it and we'll drive home then…say, late this afternoon. Supper time maybe?"

Darry has his own ideas about hippies. Says they're a bunch of deadbeat nutcases, but I've never been made to feel included when he makes these judgments. Right now, though, his disgust seems aimed right at me when he says, "You took Pony to that fucking commune? And now you're tellin' me he's whacked out on acid?"

"I've gotta go Darry. He's waitin' on me. Please don't freak out. I won't let anything happen. We'll stay put." I'm starting to hear more sounds out of that room and if I have to hang up on the man, I will.

"Sodapop Patrick!" I pull the phone away from my ear. And the scream is something I've been waiting on for a long time. But then Darry starts in with his orders about Pony. "You better not take your eyes off of him for a second. And don't let him jump out no window!" _What is up with these two and the fucking_ _windows_?

"I promise," I say, but he's still carrying on.

"I'll be..," and he's cut off when I hang up and book it back to Ponyboy.

I find Pony sitting in a corner hugging his knees and I'm thinking the noise was the lava lamp being rolled around a bit. No damage, and Pony's looking pretty okay. Right now he seems into some Hendrix they're playing now, closing his eyes, and I know I promised him no heavy stuff tonight, but my eyelashes are longing to lie against my cheeks with every slow blink and I'm not gonna make it without a little help.

I call out for Woody to bring me a bump, but not before I go to the window and lock it down, then close the curtains, then second guess, check the lock once more, then close the curtains. Then look at Pony and try to open the window to make sure the lock works. Close the curtains.

Once I get the coke, I tell myself I'm doing it for Pony to ease my shame, just a little bump so I can stay awake, to protect him, that's all. I sit on the bed Indian style and tie my hair back, then quickly pour the small amount of powder onto my knuckle. I lean down but eye Pony before I do it, and the pang of guilt eats through my guts like battery acid. He's looking at me, and though I know he doesn't even have a clue where we are or probably even what his name is, I still hate that he's looking.

Our conversation tonight didn't surprise me. I knew Pony had been holding out for the right moment to bring up my problems. And though Darry hasn't even uttered a cross word to me about my bad behavior over the last six months, his eyes give it all away. I keep waiting for the talk, especially from Darry. I've been wondering what will be the breaking point for him. But the sit down never happens.

Looking around me now, Pony practically in the fetal and cocaine spread across my finger, if this isn't the final straw, then we're all going down with the ship. And so, with that pesky devil grinning on my shoulder, I bring my finger to my nose and snort up the coke, just like I always do. I even take the remaining dust and rub it on my gums.

There's no time for regrets now because Pony is up and at'em. I'm glad I have my adrenaline back and I work to guide him over to a chair. He keeps saying spiders are crawling on him. Instead of arguing, I pretend to brush them off. "I got em all," I tell him.

I sit next to him and listen to him talk about all his visions. But when he starts up with Mom and Dad and how they're getting eaten by worms, I tune him out. I figured they'd come up, and I don't want to picture it. Instead I imagine Darry. Wonder what he's thinking about me. I'm thirteen all over again and he's disappointed I didn't catch the spiral pass he threw, losing the game. I've been working to please him all my life.

I sniff, pinch at my nose and its constant itching and I'm thankful for the coke. I wouldn't be awake without it and Pony would be on his own. I have no idea why it gets such a bad rap. All it does is make me hyper focused. Once I stayed up all night and read some of Pony's books, ended up finishing Gone with the Wind, even. I wish I'd had cocaine when I was in school cause it would've made all the difference, saved me a lot of struggle. Of course I couldn't have afforded it, and can't now, but luckily half these guys are former Socs in hippie clothing. I remember to comfort Pony when he gasps, to remind him none of this is real and it calms him down. For a bit.

I haven't wrestled Pony since he bypassed me in size, and I'm finding out how built he really is when I try to take him down. He's come at me like a bull out of a pen, carrying on about some ghosts, and God only knows what kinds of hallucinations he's dealing with. I'm no weakling, still pretty solid from the war, plus Darry has me lifting some with him, but it takes me several long minutes of sweat and struggle to wrangle Pony down. At one point, I even wish Darry was here to help me.

And we've ended up on the floor, I'm sitting against the wall, Pony's half-way lying down between my legs, his head leaning back on my chest. My arms are still holding him, woven through under his arms, hands clasping at his chest. Both of us breathing heavy, he starts begging me, "Leave the jungle, Soda." I assure him I've left. And it hits me what he's really saying. "Soda, please, please," he's to the point of crying now. And I know it's the drugs. But it's also his inner fears coming out.

I shush him, console him, while I'm dying inside.

And this is how we stay, for several hours, the sun now slivering through a chink in the armor of curtains, invading our drug filled cocoon. I no longer feel my legs and I have no idea if it's eight in the morning or four in the afternoon. Pony's come down a little. Still saying deranged things every now and then, but I know he's coming around cause he's already asked if it's over yet. The telltale sign of self's slow return.

I weasel out from under and decide to piss in the trash can rather than leave Pony, just in case. I tell him to go ahead and piss there too; it ain't like this is five star accommodations. Then we both collapse in the bed, but I know sleep is no option. We probably won't sleep till next spring after the drugs we took, but it's comfortable. Pony's now talking about the meaning of life, and that's a far more pleasant topic, but one that has no end.

He doesn't bust down the door, or yell and make a spectacle, he doesn't even sweep in and play hero. All I hear is a door creaking slowly and suddenly Darry is standing over us. With a jangle of his keys he simply says, "C'mon. We're going home."

His face is unreadable, and we both help Pony up, who hasn't even noticed it's Darry at his side. I don't bother finding my flip flops, but reach down to grab the hat. Darry yanks it out of my hand. "Give me that," and he puts it on while we practically carry Pony through the mass of drugged out bodies. "Jesus," Darry says struggling. "This kid is made of lead."

We take my car and leave Darry's truck, so I can lay Pony in the backseat and sit with him while Darry makes the long drive home. Silence is heavy, so I ask what time it is. I'm surprised when Darry says it's only 7:30. "Wow Darry. I gotta give you some credit. You waited three whole hours before you came in to take charge."

"I got lost," is all he says, and spits into one of his cups that he leaves in both cars for when he's dipping. And those are the only words spoken, except for Pony going on and on about time and space.

I lean the side of my head on the cool glass of the window, but I can still see Darry's expressionless face, his eyes dead ahead on the road while he manhandles the gearshift, his unruly hair kicking out the back of his hat. I wonder how he got to be so normal. What I would give to be the normal one. I'm lulled by the car's vibrations, Darry's occasional spitting, and I'm suddenly so tired… I must've drifted off, cause Darry roughly shakes my shoulder and says, "Help me with him."

Two out of three brothers dragging up this sidewalk today look like death warmed over, and the third looks like he could take on Ali himself.

We set up Pony on the couch so he can stare blankly at the tv, and Darry brings him some milk, since he heard its supposed to help. I raise my eyebrow at him, wondering why he'd know this. He just looks at me like of course he knows this cause he knows everything about everything.

I spend the rest of the day in my room, releasing some energy doing pushups and going over my war map, wondering if Steve had been a part of the massacre in My Lai. I also pull out my folded list of the sick things I beg God to forgive me for, knowing He'll never want to wash me clean. But I try anyway, sometimes spending hours on my knees.

I catch a glimpse in my mirror and stare for awhile. Trying to see how others see me. See what Pony and Darry are stuck with. After several minutes pass I shake my head. They think I'm wounded. That I'm covering my pain through these sinful, seedy things I do. I've had countless imaginary conversations with them, in which they beg me to stop, that I shouldn't feel guilty for all the killing I did, that it isn't my fault. I know exactly how that talk will go when they try and get me to see the error of my ways. I know them so well, and it's almost funny how they think they know me. I feel a bitter laugh rise up from my gut, and it tickles my lips, forcing a smile but I bite it back. A smile seems too demented now. No, my guilt is not from the killing.

I hear a bustle in the hall and it seems Pony's risen again. Darry's instructing him to shower and start getting his shit ready to go back to school. I forgot he has to go back tomorrow. Once again it'll just be Darry and me. And the elephant in the room.

I go out to corner Pony when he's alone, before he shuts the bathroom door. I apologize and hug him for what he had to go through, but really for everything he's had to put up with. He pretty much looks like he feels, like he's been run over by a speeding truck, but he hugs me back and there seems to be no hard feelings. His eyes look into mine a little too long though, and I get a sense it's his attempt at one final plea. I smile and look away, make some funny remark about our auras and how they're one and the same, give him what he needs. A grin and a wink.

I go back to my room and decide to skip supper. I figure the talk can wait another day, another month. But, I'm not avoiding it. I'm prepared to say all the right things. Because while they think I'm wrapping my wounds with drugged out nights, I'm really protecting those two. They can't ever know my true guilt.

The tormenting guilt that I'm not a single bit sorry for every kill I took. I don't want them to realize the only thing I've ever been good at in my fucked up life is being a hunter of men. That all those who outranked me were taken back by my level of skill, my methodical but brutal tactics. Or that sometimes, maybe in some small way, I got off on it.

And that I'm so dreadfully and painfully sorry…for not being sorry at all.

I turn on my music and drown out the house, the noisy voices in my head, and hunker down for the sleeplessness, and the sounds of this groaning ship we steer, as it sinks a little bit further every night.

* * *

The mood in the car is a bit different today as we drive the same path out to the farm to pick up Darry's abandoned truck. Soda and I volunteered to retrieve it, but we'll head right back home to get my stuff. I'm taking the 3:15 bus back to school and though I'm glad to be getting back to campus, I still hate saying goodbye, but the thought I'll be coming back soon for Christmas is consoling.

Soda sits in the same position he was in two nights ago with his feet on the dash. He's barefoot cause he says he'll just put on his flip flops that he left behind. I look over at him and wonder how it would be to see life the way he does. He's been through hell, and is going through some rough patches in the aftermath, but Darry and I always talk about how he manages to remain intact.

Soda is all light. There isn't an ounce of dark in that soul of his.

"Why don't you roll down your window," I say as I work to roll down mine. He looks over and gives me that full-on Sodapop smile as the wind flies through his hair and we ride the country roads, the November gusts carrying just the chill we need to get our blood pumping again. I feel hope from the headway I've made with Soda the other night. I'm not as scared to face down his demons, and I think we can all three figure out how to put Soda on a path to recovery. Whenever we can finally sit down and talk with him.

I pull up to the worn out house, and it looks different in the light of day. I can't believe I actually took an acid trip here, and though I'll never touch the stuff again, the trip did kinda open my eyes to some things. Now, if I could just figure out what exactly.

Soda hops out of the car and I'm expecting him to just grab his shoes and get in the truck to follow me back home. But he's still standing in the open car door, his gentle eyes peering down at me, and my heart sinks when he says, "See ya at Christmas Pony. I love you, man."

I swallow hard and lean across the seat and he slides back in to hug me. We hold each other tight and he gives me a few slaps on the back. "Love you too Soda." I don't want to let him go but I have to.

I watch him stroll up the porch, open the door, and I hear his voice echoing back, with all that untamed spirit saying, "Hey y'all. Who's huntin' for a little action?" The door closes like a punch to my gut.

I drive back to Darry, leaving Soda behind, and with every mile I put between us, I can almost hear the tearing, and I'm not ready at all for the rip that stings.

 **A/N:** The Outsiders by SE Hinton.


	4. Chapter 4

**THE TRIP**

PART IV

Winter break was as normal as it could've been. I guess there wasn't enough time to do anything but celebrate Christmas, then turn around and ring in the seventies. When we compared it to the year before, we couldn't be anything but glad and thankful. There was also relief that Soda spent most of the time at home with us, and the Thanksgiving fiasco had become a small bump in our history. I boarded the bus back to school, comforted that both of my brothers were there to see me off this time. But my contentment would be short lived.

 _God I hate dorm bathrooms. Even with flip flops on, I still feel like some disease is gonna crawl off the hot wet tiles and in between my toes. I'm flossing my teeth when I hear an abrupt call from the hallway, "Curtis, phone." It's Thursday night at 11:30 and I'm wondering what in the hell Darry wants now as I stare in the mirror, letting my floss dangle from between my teeth._

 _I hurry to the end of the hall, where the phone's hanging by its cord, almost to the floor. "Hello," I answer, remembering to yank the floss out, and when I hear the voice on the other end, I'm shocked it's not my brother._

 _"Hey Ponyboy Curtis," Two-Bit says, cushioning his greeting with a forced lightness. My breath comes more rapid when I begin to imagine the worst._

 _I immediately ask him, "What's wrong?" My fist is clenched tight around the receiver._

 _"Everything's fine, don't worry," and his fake calm is making me even more panicked. I don't have time for this._

 _"Two-Bit talk, what the fuck man?" I can't control my aggression._

 _Two-Bit understands and starts talking fast, getting right into it. "Sodapop got into a little bit of trouble downtown." The relief that nobody's dead is enough to get my blood moving again, but my stomach still sinks with the disappointment that Soda's obviously gotten worse. "Pauly called and said people seen him walkin' the street with no shoes, no shirt and I don't know, actin' crazy I guess. So, Darry and I drove down to pick him up, but the police was already cuffin' him by the time we got there. And then he just started fightin' back, man." Two-Bit's sigh gives me all I need to know. The scene must've been terrible._

 _"Where's Darry?" I ask, my voice cracking, my free hand rubbing my forehead._

 _"He's down at the station to try and bail him out. He wanted me to call and get you a bus ticket home for the weekend." He pauses and says softly, "He don't think he can handle this one on his own." We both know how low things are when Darry asks anyone for help._

 _A whole army couldn't keep me away from my brothers right now. I wish I could take a bus right this minute. Hell, I'd be willing to run the entire distance, never even stopping to catch my breath. I need to be home. Now isn't soon enough, and my anxiety is through the roof._

 _I appreciate Two-Bit, who always gives it straight, and about Soda he says, "I hardly recognized him, Pony. He was just….gone."_

That was four months ago, and I'm now on a bus about thirty miles outside Tulsa, making my last trip home for the summer, happy to be finished with school, and even happier I'm coming home to a better situation than that emergency trip back in those dark days of January.

I think back to that morning, to Two-Bit who was the one to pick me up cause Soda was forced to stay the night in jail, and Darry was just then able to get him released. We went home to wait for them, and Two-Bit filled me in on Soda's other erratic behaviors.

From the window, I watched Darry walk Soda up our porch steps with a guiding hand, cause Soda looked like he didn't even know where he was. And Two-Bit was right. Not only was he a walking wreck, his hair and beard unkempt, bruises all over his body, caked blood on his face, it was his eyes that made my stomach turn. Those eyes that peered out from under the strands of his long, unruly hair were unrecognizable.

That man walking into our house was not my brother.

After sleeping it off, Soda seemed to come-to that late afternoon, and Darry and I worked off the fact that he realized he'd hit rock bottom. We used that awful moment to prove how far down he really was and that he needed our help. If he wasn't willing to receive it, then Darry would force him into some program.

His eyes became his again, full of devastation and shame at what he'd done. And he seemed almost relieved we were talking to him about changing his ways. He then couldn't stop crying, but we never tried to stop him. He collapsed on the couch and curled up into his misery, and Darry sat there rubbing his back, and we just looked at each other over Soda's lifeless body, wondering if this was the breakthrough we'd hoped for.

And things did get better. I made Darry promise to call me weekly and give a report, and Darry was happy to list off all the improvements. He even hired Soda to work for him, since Darry was now the foreman on several job sites, and although Soda was still staying out most nights, he arrived on time every morning and worked his ass off with all the other roofers, which was enough to appease Darry.

Not me.

But, it's a start, and my head is resting on the bus's vibrating window, and I'm wondering what this summer will hold, feeling hopeful that Soda seems to be coming back to us a little more each day.

We finally pull into the Tulsa bus depot, and from where I sit I spot Darry right away, leaning against the door of the car, the dust and exhaust swirling around him, the epitome of cool with his sunglasses on and arms crossed. I fling my backpack on and accidentally knock another passenger. "Sorry," I apologize quickly, at the same time the man says, "Watch it kid." I mumble another apology and sidestep down the aisle with cheeks red from embarrassment, and as soon as I hop off, Darry's face breaks into the smile of a proud parent when he sees me.

I can't help but be disappointed he's alone, but his enthusiastic greeting is more than enough to satisfy. He walks over fast and pulls me into a giant embrace, and it's funny how fast things can change. One minute ago I was a college student alone out in the world, working on papers and working on getting girls, and now I'm Darry's little brother for the summer, relieved to be just that.

He lets go and we search for my duffel bags and boxes that are thrown out on the platform with the all the other passengers' belongings. As we comb through it all, Darry takes notice of my larger, sturdier frame. "Damn Ponyboy, you keep gettin' bigger every time you come home."

"Coach had us liftin' all spring," I tell him, pleased he noticed, and I find my things and we each carry a box and a bag, heading for the car's trunk. I casually ask, "Soda couldn't come?" and I squint over at him, trying not to look hurt.

Darry slams the trunk and his smile reaches his eyes, "No, he's here. Just went to take a leak," and Darry points his thumb behind him, toward the restroom doors that flank the sides of the building.

I strain to see that far, keeping my eyes fixed in that direction, and when he emerges suddenly from the throng of moving people, I'm so stunned an "Oh my God," escapes from under my breath.

Darry chuckles at my reaction. "Crazy, huh?" he says, watching me stare in disbelief.

Soda has shaved his beard and cut his hair, and in his relaxed saunter he's moseying his way over, shoving M&Ms in his mouth, until he finally sees me and then starts to quicken his pace, flashing his thousand watt smile. I notice his right hand and wrist are covered by a cast.

"Soda," I choke out and go to hug him, but I can't quit looking at his face, because I haven't really seen it for years, not since he left for the war. By the time he came home to us he looked like a bearded hippie. And though his face appears a little older and holds less of the innocence now, it's a big piece of him that's returned, and I've become sort of emotional just looking into it.

"Hey Ponyboy," and he pulls me away a little so he can take a look at me, and I almost laugh cause that son of a bitch has managed to grow even more good looking. How is that even possible? I can only imagine how many girls he's pulling in now, and for the first time, I feel a twinge that might even be jealousy.

But he's the same old Soda as he swipes the keys from Darry and throws them at me while announcing, "Pony's drivin'," and then he claims shotgun not a second later. "Aww, looks like Mr. Boss Man's got the backseat," he taunts, giving Darry a devilish grin, and we set off for home.

Stuck on campus without a car, it feels so good to be driving again. As we outskirt the city for the east side, we take the stretch of backroads, and Soda gives my knee a nudge with his cast and says "C'mon man, punch it."

Without hesitation, my one foot steps on the clutch and the other slams the gas to the floor, and my hand shifts the gear to fifth. It's just like old times when Soda would drive me out past the city limits, roads lined with wheat fields as far as the eye could see, and we'd spend the afternoons flying under those rusted, squeaky windmills, the speed always an adrenaline boost to us both. I notice Darry in the rearview and he looks surprisingly relaxed, and the smile that's settled on my face feels as pure as it's felt in quite some time.

I look over at Soda and ask, "What happened with that?" and point at his cast. His fingers coming out of it are bruised with jagged, brown stitches that criss cross over a few knuckles.

"Busted my hand up," he says nonchalantly, but studying it like he's just now seeing it. "I get it off today, actually, so that means I'm headed back to the rooftops this week, huh Dare?" and he's craning his neck to see Darry in the back. "I been helping him with odds and ends around the site while it heals, and good Lord it's borin' as hell. Least it was my right hand though."

"How'd you do it? At work?" I ask him, throwing the car back into third to slow my speed now that we're coming into town.

Soda looks out the window and says while shrugging, "Somethin' like that." I notice Darry hasn't made a peep.

Changing the subject I say, "When did you shed your hobo look Soda? It was just starting to grow on me."

He laughs a little under his breath and shoots Darry a side glance, "When the heat got to be too much, cause this slave driver makes me bust ass twice as hard as all the other guys." He runs his hand through his hair that's cut, but not short in the least. I'm realizing we all three have the same hair really, the same tufts that kick out, curling somewhat where it's overgrown, shaggy.

"Bullshit," Darry calls out, eyes rolling. "Sodapop's got my crew goofin' off all day long with his crazy ass antics. Productivity's gone down at least fifty percent since he came on the payroll." By his face, I can see Darry's loving every minute of this back and forth.

"Get this Ponyboy," Soda leans forward and slaps his good hand on the dash. "I've been workin' there, what, four months? I know everything about everybody and their families, and Darry still don't know shit about 'em after workin' there for years on end. They're like y'all are really brothers? They can't believe I actually have a personality." He winks and punches Darry lightly on his knee.

Darry's laughing like he might just agree, "Soda's already been to half their houses for supper and didn't you go to one of their anniversary shindigs?" He's shaking his head like Soda's the strangest cat on the planet.

"Yup, Carl's and Martha's twentieth." He pauses and looks off in the distance in true comic effect. "Beautiful couple, God bless 'em," and keeps a straight face while I explode into laughter.

"Well, this ain't gonna last, this clean cut look," Soda says as his hand rubs his naked jaw. "I'm gonna grow it all back. I miss it."

"Lord Soda, if I had a face like that, I sure as hell wouldn't be covering it up," I tell him, meaning it.

But Soda's mind is already off on something else, ignoring the talk about his looks, just like always. I guess when you're used to being some Greek god, the subject doesn't matter too much.

As we pass by the DX, I see Soda's eyes are fixed on the young guy who's working the pumps in the old DX shirt, and I know exactly what he must be feeling, cause I feel it too. Where did the time go? The years when Steve and Soda ran the DX seem like yesterday, but at the same time, with all that's happened, from where we stand now looking back, it feels a lifetime ago. My heart hurts with a cruel nostalgia.

Soda shakes himself out of his thoughts, pushes in the car's cigarette lighter and starts discussing the plans. "Alright," he says clapping his hand to his cast. "I'm gonna get my cast off and then we're gonna go out big tonight. Celebrate Pony's homecomin'." He reaches over to pat my knee, then pulls out the popped out lighter and brings the red hot coils up to his cigarette, takes a long drag and then waves it around while he talks about our options, casting his vote for Copperhead's. Then he adds, "Darry, you can't stand us up this time, man. Cause I may not be able to keep ole Pony here from playin' with that LSD again."

"Ha ha," I fake laugh. "Don't remind me. I don't even want to remember that night. Or Glory." Darry won't even acknowledge this conversation. We're turning up our street and I remember to ask about Soda's sweet friend. "Hey, how's that cute girl doing? The one that wanted to drive cross country. Patty?"

"Oh Pattycake's alright. She's still wantin' to take that trip. Begs me to go with her." He exhales a smoke ring. "I keep tellin' her I ain't nobody's Bobby McGee."

"Shit I wish I was somebody's Bobby McGee," I say. Soda assures me I don't, but I'm thinking I'd love a girl to say she'd _trade all her tomorrows for one single yesterday_ to be with me. The fact Soda's even resisting proves that there's only one who's cool enough to be a Bobby McGee in this car, and it sure ain't me or Darry.

We make it home and Soda takes my place in the driver's seat to head for his cast removal, and I get my things settled back into my room, noticing how every time I return home after being away for a lengthy period of time, the smell of our house becomes more noticeable. And I breathe it in with rapid sniffs, trying to catch it, enjoy it before it becomes familiar and elusive once again.

Darry and I spend the afternoon on the porch, using this time without Soda around to discuss him. "So what happened to his hand?" I ask as soon as I settle on the rickety outdoor couch, my tone meant to admonish Darry for keeping it from me.

Darry comes clean and says, "He's just been so up and down lately. Gets real frustrated." He takes a sip of his beer before he says, "He just punched a hole in his wall one night." A shrug of his shoulders tells me he has no idea why.

"What about Steve? Hasn't that helped?" I'd put so much hope in Steve's safe arrival, praying this was the answer to Soda's unrest.

"Sure," Darry says, now enthusiastic. "He hangs with Soda as much as he can. A real good influence. Steve's unbelievable man," and as Darry goes on about how great Steve's doing, I'm truly happy for him, but I can't help the burn in the pit of my stomach that's screaming out why can't Soda be doing great too? "Compared to Soda, Steve came back lookin' like he'd just been on vacation at Club Med. You'll be surprised when you see him. Seems like he's got his shit together."

I say nothing as I silently chide myself for my bitterness at our friend's good fortune, and then Darry leans forward and clears his throat. "Steve took me out for some beers the other night. He had a lot to say about Soda's situation. Gave me some insight on what Soda might be going through."

I suddenly quit peeling my bottle's beer label off and focus on Darry with every fiber of my being, waiting to hear what Steve had to say.

"The worst news Steve got during the whole war was when he ran into some buddy that told him Soda'd been assigned to some platoon called Tiger Force. Steve said his heart just sunk then and there. It meant that Soda was really good actually, cause they only pick the best, and they'd probably been groomin' him for it way back in the beginning at Fort Campbell.

"Steve said it's some recon patrol that was made to out-guerrilla the guerrilla warfare. Cause everything's so fucked up in that war. And they basically just send these guys out alone, way deep in the jungle with no rules, to destroy everything that moves. The officers turn a blind eye to all of it. The brutality. Hell they encourage it. I guess they train them to get in the minds of the enemy."

Darry rubs his face with both hands and leaves his fingers pressed against his eyes, like he's rubbing away the images he doesn't want. He goes on talking and I wish he'd stop. "Steve said these are the guys who collect ears and teeth and shit. These are the guys who unleash hell on villages, some of'em raping the women and murdering civilians along the way." Very quickly Darry adds, "Steve don't think Soda would ever participate in that stuff, of course. But he sure as hell saw it everyday. Worked alongside the insanity, the sickness. Probably desensitized to it somewhat. I don't know." Darry looks so uncomfortable he's likely to climb out of his own skin.

And I just sit there digesting it, my stomach turning, fighting against what I've just been told about my beloved brother. I think back to our childhood, how Soda was always quick to punish. An eye for an eye type kid. Being his older brother Darry was probably never affected, but I lived under Soda's concrete, but very fair rules and when I did something to him, I knew there was no talking my way out of the swift physical or mental blow I was about to receive. Once delivered, Soda forgave wholly, and you moved on so happy to have such a sparkling clean slate. In fact, most of my lessons were learned not from my parents, but from Soda's teaching methods on loyalty and fairness and how to treat people right.

There certainly wasn't a sadistic part of him in any of it, despite the fact he could be downright scary when you knew you'd crossed his line. Because Soda showed absolutely no mercy until he felt you'd paid the price. My soul is shattering thinking back on this, cause I know in my heart, those bastards picked him very well. They knew exactly what they were tapping into with him, and a few small tweaks could warp it all to hell. I feel sick agreeing with their choice.

Darry clears his throat and says, "Here he comes. Snap out of it," as Soda drives up. I'm not ready to pull myself together yet but I'm forced to, and I'm thankful the sun is receding. Maybe my sickly shock will be hidden in these long shadows of evening.

He steps out of the car, holding up his hand, showing off how mobile it is now, and there's still enough light for us to see his goofy grin and eyes full of spark, and I'm amazed at how much better I feel just looking at him. I could almost let myself forget all the guilt he must be carrying. All the ugliness he was made to be a part of. "Who's ready to go have some fun?" he calls out, bounding past us inside to go get his smokes.

Darry and I just look at each other, shaking our heads in amazement. "Good Lord," Darry breathes. And as we stand up to make our way to the car, it's slowly dawning on me why Soda really cleaned up his image. It's exactly that. An image. This clean cut look worries me more than his long hair hippie look. Cause this is Soda's way of hiding so much shit. I can't help but wonder if he's even worse off than before.

Soda drives cause he's the only one who hasn't been drinking yet, and Darry and I are his captives, as we once again let Soda control the night, control us, and because he's so good at it, he leads you to believe he's the passive one, and I'm just now realizing it's always been this way.

 **A/N:** The Outsiders by SE Hinton, Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin

Tiger Force is not mine. They were a real platoon and Steve's descriptions are from true reports and from the book "Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War, by Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss (Martha Hamilton is also listed on some versions). This platoon was awarded many medals, although several of these soldiers were later investigated for war crimes, though none were punished beyond a slap on the wrist. They were found to be following orders and it was all swept under the rug until much later. The investigation was only zeroed in on about seven months of their tour in 1967. Soda would've rotated in on the tail end of this, missing all the scandal, but present for much of its action since it lasted way beyond.


	5. Chapter 5

**THE TRIP**

PART V

With the windows down, we can hardly smell the remnants of puke on Pony's t-shirt, but Darry makes him take it off anyway and surprisingly, Pony throws it out of my car at sixty miles an hour. The night has gotten away from us, or rather, them. At least I still have my wits about me. I passed on the steady line of shots that came to our table. They don't do nothing for me anyway, so I'm the responsible one this evening. But my little brother kept knockin 'em back, thanks to Two-Bit who cheered on the returning college boy. Darry was too busy flirting to care much about the rowdy scene of our table. He'd had enough beers to think our plain-looking waitress was hot as hell, and I just let him go on believing it.

So, once again, we're driving home with an intoxicated Pony in the backseat, but this time, it ain't my fault. Now Darry can't look at me with those judging eyes, and maybe my two brothers should have one of their in-depth conversations about good little Ponyboy's state of being instead of mine.

"I can't believe you didn't go after that Debbie girl, Soda. She was all over you man," Darry says for the second time, as I steer with my knee for a moment so I can light up this damn cigarette with both hands, using one to shield it from the wind. I just ignore him, though. He don't need to know why I didn't go after her. He reaches his hand over and takes the wheel until I light the smoke, not trusting my knee to drive, I guess. When I finally manage to take back control of the car, I turn the conversation to the puker in the backseat.

"Pony, lemme know if you want me to pull over," I say, trying to put _you better not throw up in my car_ in a nice way. A grunt is all I get from him, but at least he ain't green no more.

"Why the hell you take all them shots anyway, Ponyboy?" and Darry's just now on his case, even though he'd been right in front of him when it all went down. God forbid he blame Two-Bit the enabler. But I take a little satisfaction in hearing this somewhat subtle scolding. Something deep within feels a bit vindicated. But I don't know why it should. Ain't like Ponyboy fucks up that much or that often. Ain't like he's the one Darry's discussing behind his back with his own best friend. It's funny to me the things people assume I don't know.

"Aw c'mon Darry, lay off him," I say for Pony, like I always do. But I add, "Pony's been away at college. Can't fault him for just doin' what every other college kid's doin' every night of their lives." And my last remark hits Darry right where I want it to, as he takes off with a speech to the backseat about why Pony better not be making that a habit. Pony's too drunk to defend himself, and too drunk to see what I've just done.

I'm in one of my moods tonight and I'm itching to deliver these two home and take off for a little action of my own. I hate that I can't be satisfied with just going out for a normal night with my brothers and our friends. But, I find myself pretending the whole time and counting down until it's over. My mood can't be described as a bad one, just a feeling that I'm waiting around for real life to start. And sadly, that life happens to be on a whole different planet from the one Darry and Ponyboy live on.

We pull up at the house and I stomp out my smoke while Darry helps Pony out of the car. He's walking thank God, cause he's way too big anymore, and we're both at either side to support him up the porch steps. But, roughly, he jerks both his elbows away and turns on us with a hiss, "I can do it myself," and it turns out he sure can as he bounds up the rest of the way without a problem and tears into the house, slamming the door behind him.

"What the hell's wrong with him?" Darry asks, now that the two of us are left here standing without a brother to hold onto.

I shrug my shoulders and smile at Darry. "Maybe he doesn't like his problems pointed out. Or I don't know, maybe he's just a mean drunk." I give a light punch to his arm to lighten the very atmosphere I created and then pull my keys out of my pocket. "I'm takin' off for a little bit." And I turn for the car and leave Darry to stand in the middle of all that broken bullshit he wants to fix.

But before I can get my car door open, he starts walking towards me. "Where you goin' this time Sodapop?" and by his commanding voice and his approach, and after all those beers, I know he's finally ready to take me on.

I open the door and prop my arm on the top as I stare across at Darry where he's leaning against the front gate. My body's almost purring with electricity. "It's my day off. I ain't on your clock right now." My words are slowly paced and I'm sure my eyes must be clashing against the smile I fake.

Always a tough opponent, Darry answers back with eyes that pierce, and I wonder how he can make a smile so bitter. "You gonna go track down that little whore you get all your drugs from?" He thinks he's so smart. I look up at the night sky and chuckle lightly under my breath for a second, amused it's taken a year and a night out on the town to finally have this conversation. But he's not moving while he waits for my answer, the ever patient fighter.

Darry means business and with the way I'm feeling right now, I'm ready to deliver. I walk back around the car, twirling the key ring round my finger, and lean against its other side so I can be directly in front of him on the sidewalk. I cross my arms to copy his and enjoy watching his face change as I spit out what he doesn't want to know. The truth.

"No Darry, I don't get the drugs from that whore. I get my drugs from about five different guys. Every one of 'em I count as friends." I take a solid breath through my nose and my stomach is swirling with a vengeance I can't identify, but it's dying to lash out all on its own. I'm finally getting that feeling I always seek. At last I'm living in the moment with my brother, despite the shit I'm throwing, or maybe because of it.

"At least they ain't walking on eggshells around me. Those friends and that whore and those drugs might just be the realest things I got right now, man." My words seem to echo throughout my head and the quiet, almost demented laugh that's now erupting out of me comes from a place deeper than any jungle I was in. I work to control and rein it in. "And Darry, if you're wantin' to get real right now, you wanna know why I'm always hanging out with that…. with Glory?" But my eyes blink hard and I can't do this. I can't tell him the reason. Maybe cause I'm just realizing it myself and it's making my stomach turn.

I guess Darry sees my change of heart, or maybe senses something so small that's still reaching out to him. I watch his demeanor change from tough to surprised to protective in a matter of three seconds and he can't find his words.

I love Darry. I need Darry. But he needs to know he can't fix this.

My voice sounds raspy when I mutter, "Maybe you oughta tend to that other little brother you got who came home to you this summer." I can see him swallow hard before I turn to go. "He's a much easier project."

I drive away, watching him through the rearview. The only sign of life I can see is his arms dropping to his sides before I take the curve out of sight and leave him on the sidewalk. The fight I had expected wasn't a fight at all and my adrenaline's cutting away, and a little guilt sneaks in, but mostly cause I threw Pony under the bus. Hell, we both know Pony's no project to fix. Unless you call thinking too hard an issue. But I'm so fucking sick of their little looks they like to give each other when they think I don't see. Tonight I just feel like casting a few stones myself.

* * *

I'm planted to the sidewalk until the sound of his car becomes a distant hum. How the hell did we end up here? How did Pony's welcome home party evolve into this showdown on the front walk? I shake my foggy head as I slowly latch the gate closed and let my legs carry me inside. My mind is off and away, poring over what Soda tried to shock me with.

If it all weren't so painful, I'd laugh at how he thinks I could possibly be surprised by any of his statements. Does he think Pony and I aren't on to him? That we don't discuss him at length every chance we get? That we don't care enough to talk over and analyze every single piece of him in great detail, trying to find some way to reach in and pull him out of his spiral? That's all we've been doing for the past year. Grasping for straws and for ways and for hope that he'll get better. We've been silently cheering his advancements and mourning his setbacks. Yet loving him through both. Does he even get that?

The slam of the screen door startles me even though I'm the one who did it, and I find myself in the living room. I look at Pony passed out on the couch, his shirt gone somewhere on the side of some dark road, his arm thrown over his eyes and his other hanging to the floor. I poke at him to see if he'll get up and make it to his own bed, but he seems set where he is so I lift his arm up and put it in a more comfortable position. The movement stirs him and he rolls over on his side, facing away, and Soda's dog tags are twisted on Pony's neck and now drape down his back.

I sit for a second on the coffee table in front of him, staring at those tags and trying to soak in all this drama. Tonight, Soda's finger aimed at Pony's drinking only raises one red flag in me. It only proves to show me the new tactic Soda's launching. The futile attempt of covering his own problems by throwing the attention on someone else.

But there's no denying I don't like seeing Pony like this, and the aftertaste of stale beer on a dry tongue reminds me I'm not one to judge. Maybe we are too lax. Maybe the year's been harder on us than I think, and drinks are our refuge. I can't be sure what fills up Pony's time when he's away from me, and I haven't seen his grades yet this semester, but I see no reason to think he's let some habit run away with him. As for me, though, I know the first thing I do when I come home from work is pop open a cold one. Who knows? Maybe Soda's onto something.

I know I'm glad to have Ponyboy home. I feel stronger paired with him when I face our brother's demons. I pat his shoulder as I stand up to leave him, wondering how in the world the little kid I partially raised became the brother I go to for strength. I can only hope he's not aware of that. I sure wouldn't want to find out the one man on Earth that's entirely responsible for my well being is the one who actually needs me.

As I stop to turn off the kitchen light, a memory floods over me. One I haven't thought of in a long time. I can feel the sharp pain as if it's happening to me at this moment. I remember the night, in this very kitchen, when I grabbed hold of Soda like my life depended on it, with wounds so fresh from Mom and Dad's accident.

 _I'm not sure who's holding up who at this point, and even as we bawl we're mindful of what's important. We can't wake up Ponyboy._ _Soda is my best friend, my closest confidant, my keeper of secrets. And so I cry with all my might into my brother's shoulder. He's giving me permission for this breakdown, he's encouraging it, because for Soda, nothing is real unless it's raw._

I'm not sure where we'd be if Soda wasn't there to get me through that week. Through those years. He's the one who carried this family, really. He met so many of our needs, emotional and financial. He's the brother I was so used to depending on. Even at those tender ages, we became a two-man team for Ponyboy, who we both tried desperately to protect from this hard life. And now, look where we are. There's an ache I've buried deep that's starting to rise. I miss him.

With lights out and teeth brushed, my head hits the pillow, but my mind hasn't stopped its racing. I try to picture Soda as the savage soldier, playing the jungle's deadly game of cat and mouse, up against a hidden and sadistic enemy. And I try and picture him in a drugged out haze somewhere in this town tonight. But I just can't. I can't see him as anything but the little brother whose laughter filled these rooms.

I'm gonna get him back. If I thought it would help, I'd get in my truck and track his ass down right now. Drag him back kicking and screaming with a strength I'm sure I still have. But somehow I know that's not the way to play this game. No, but we'll get him back. There's always been a beacon that never fails to shine from the front porch of this little house, and something tells me he still sees it.

* * *

After driving aimlessly, a relief has settled in when I think of where I'm headed. I know what waits for me tonight. Even my skin's excited to wake up, my blood's ready for the intake. I wonder at how relief can be found in the lowest, seediest places. For a brief moment, Patty crosses my mind, but I push down that desire like always. I can't bring her anywhere close to my sins. She don't deserve any part of me, the ugliness.

I think about Pony and his goodness. How he looked at me when I came back from the war, and how he wore my dog tags for a summer straight. Suddenly I wanna go back home, to Darry and the fallout. But my car drives itself to Gloria's, cause I know where I belong. I park outside her apartment and sit for a second to pull it together. I need what's inside, and there's no reason I should deny myself. Satisfied with my decision, I'm out of the car and headed in willingly for my corruption, but on that long walk across the crumbling parking lot, my earlier realization starts creeping in and stops me. It's what's been worrying me. No, drugs ain't my only fucked up side in all this. I exhale with a painful sigh and run my hands down a face that feels so old. I've let hate cross into territories where it don't belong.

I'll always find myself crawling back to Glory. Cause she likes it rough. And rough and mean's about the only way I know how to give it anymore.

Shame weighs heavy when I'm looking in on my sinful self. But a man's desire, once it's taken hold, ain't nowhere near the match in weight. So I continue on to the building, climbing each step to a warped existence, my senses already heightened, aching for the release. I knock hard for that hit.

And there she is. And the thrill up my spine feels primal, animalistic. And I see she's been playing in the coke again. And she's ready. And I'm hungry for all that sickness. And I smile a devil's grin. And God forgive me.

 **A/N:** The Outsiders by SE Hinton


	6. Chapter 6

**Warning: This chapter alludes to rape. Nothing graphic.**

 **THE TRIP**

PART VI

I never sleep over. Unless I'm too impaired to stand on my own two feet. But I'm on coke and uppers these days so that's rarely the case. But I do try and stay away from the angel dust now, after my violent episode outside Pauly's when the cops hauled me in. I still got my head on straight, despite what Darry and Pony think of me. I even scared myself that night.

I always break away from Glory's apartment soon after the sun comes up. It feels too uncomfortable to be with her in the harsh light of day, after the things we've done to each other in those dark, ungodly hours. And outside of the bedroom, there ain't nothing about Gloria that holds my interest, not even her beauty. I wonder why she's willing to let me back in every time I show up on her doorstep, wonder what's made her so fucked up that she lets me treat her like I do. I have the war to blame. What's her excuse? But I don't care enough about her to find out.

So I take the walk of shame to my car, wearing last night's rumpled clothes and the usual regrets. My eyes sting and I can't get my sunglasses out of the glove compartment fast enough. I realize I haven't eaten since the bag of M&Ms I had when we picked up Ponyboy yesterday, and food is now my mission.

It isn't a matter of me trying to piece together what happened with Darry last night. My mind is sharp and perfectly clear on what went down. I wasn't even on anything when I threw the truth out there. And though it felt like a release, I never want to hurt him. I'm not on his schedule, but I hope to catch him before he takes off to wherever he's working his guys today.

I'm walking out of the grocery, my arm trying to balance an almost full bag, while both hands are working on peeling the banana I just bought. I'm halfway to my car when out of the corner of my eye, I notice a familiar girl dressed in her school uniform, and I try and tell myself I didn't purposely come to the corner grocery across from Patty's school. Looks like they're not out for the summer yet, cause I hear the bell and hundreds of girls are scurrying in, while Patty's headed for the store instead, and I pick up my pace, hoping she won't see me, but wishing that she will.

"Sodapop Curtis, is that you?" she calls out, and I stop mid-step, mid-bite, and slowly turn around. Her eyes are studying me from across the lot and I've forgotten she hasn't seen me since I've cleaned up. I nod and smile, mouth closed, trying to chew and swallow and think how awkward this feels, seeing her right after I've just violated Glory in all ways wicked. I hug the grocery bag closer as a kind of shield and watch her approach.

"Hey Pattycake," I greet her once my mouth is cleared. _God please don't get too close Patty. You have no idea what I'm capable of._

She's always so happy to see me and she has a hand over her mouth in surprise, but not enough to cover up her talking the entire way over. "I can't believe that's you Soda! This is so far out. Oh my God look at your face!" She's right in front of me now, studying me, even taking off my sunglasses to look in my eyes, no inhibitions whatsoever. "So this is your face, huh? And a haircut too. What are you, some frat boy?" She smiles right along with her eyes, and my grin is wide and feels easy and unforced, despite my need to keep myself in check when it comes to her.

"Just figured it was time for a change," and it's new and strange and exciting for me to feel a little self-conscious. "I haven't seen ya round the farm in awhile. Whatcha been up to?"

She tucks her hair behind her ears and her voice drops a few levels of enthusiasm. "My dad found about it. He's being a real jerk. Got me on lockdown these days."

"Well," I tell her with all honesty, wanting to point but realizing I'm still holding my half-eaten banana and drop it at my side, "good for him. If I was your dad I wouldn't let you out of the house." And her grimace tells me she doesn't like that response. And I'm wondering if she thinks I don't care if she's at the farm or not. The fact she never has any idea how cute she is and what she does to me, charms me even more. I change the subject. "So, you turn eighteen yet?" _What the fuck is wrong with me?_

"Soda," she says in the voice she uses whenever I forget something about her, "I turned eighteen way back in January. Remember?" She's now wearing my sunglasses and looks up at me. "Are you gonna grow your beard back? Cause I don't even know who you are anymore," she says with a tease in her voice that makes me want to put her in my car.

"Depends. You want me to?" I feel a heat coursing through my voice and through me. _You best run now, get your ass back in that school if you know what's good for you._

"Depends," she answers. "You gonna take that trip with me?" She takes off the glasses and squints up at me in the sun. "Cause you're gonna need a beard to fit that part." Just then a couple of nuns walk the perimeter. "Aw hell. I gotta go," she says scrunching up her freckled nose, and then carefully slides the glasses back on my face cause I don't have available hands. "Hey, is your little brother home for the summer yet?"

My muscles tense when she asks, cause I know that's who she fits with. Someone who's good. Nineteen. "Yeah, Pony's back," I answer, trying to sound glad, even though I truly am.

She's already taking off, but backwards so she can still talk to me. "You should tell him to call me some time. Maybe we can double with you and…Glory these days right?" I can't help but chuckle thinking about the prospect of the four of us out somewhere, the fact that I'd never let that happen. And Patty looks hurt for a second, not understanding my reaction. "Or not. I mean, don't make him call me if he's not interested." She seems like she's fretting over it as she speeds up. "Please don't even mention it to him, okay Soda?" _Oh I won't. He already had his chance._

Before I can explain it's not her I was laughing at, she turns around and walks fast back to the schoolyard, and I stand there and watch those smooth legs in that little skirt, feeling like the predator I've become.

* * *

I've become one with the couch, grown into the pillows. Should anyone need to sit in this living room, they'll have to sit on top of me, cause I ain't moving anytime soon. Darry banging around the kitchen like a damn bull can't disturb this zone I'm in, and I don't even mind the morning sunlight seeping through the blinds, bathing my relaxed eyelids with its golden warmth. As long as I keep my head still, I'll be just fine right here for eternity.

I'm half asleep and the swoosh of Darry's shoelaces while he ties up his work boots floats through my mind like a dream, and the next thing I know he's tapping my forehead with his finger and it's getting harder and more annoying. I let out a moan so he knows I'm conscious, but that's all I can manage. It doesn't make him stop. I slowly bring my hand up to grasp his wrist, my fingers covering his watch, and work to pull him away from me.

"Pony I'm headed out. You gonna look for a job today?" I don't need to open my eyes to picture every move he's making. He's buckling his belt, now his wallet's getting tucked into his back pocket, and finally his sunglasses are hooked onto the neck of his shirt. "Listen, why don't you come down to the Johnson site today and I'll put you on my payroll this summer."

"Fuck no," I finally speak, turning down Darry's offer for the tenth time in two days. I can think of only one thing worse than roofing in this heat. And that's roofing in this heat with two older brothers. "But thanks," I add, my eyes still glued shut.

"I'll be back around five, and we're gonna have to talk." This statement is enough for one eye to pop open and look over at him. "Soda and I kinda had it out last night. Kinda." He doesn't sound upset, and finally both my eyes are working, searching his face for a sign to tell me what we're dealing with here. "It's actually a good thing," he assures me. "He came clean on some stuff, says he likes when things are real. Well, I'm about ready for shit to get real, ain't you?" Darry's looking down on me and I recognize that face. It's his _Bring it Motherfucker_ game face, complete with that dangerous half smile that reels you in then cuts off your nuts in one fell swoop.

"Well sure," I say with a scratchy voice, though I'm not too sure I'm ready for it to be today. But I haven't seen Darry this pumped in awhile, so I guess I'm in. He's out the door before I can ask anything else, and I continue my deep relationship with the couch, running my fingers along the indentions of countless cigarette burns, wondering what the hell I missed last night.

I'm falling back to sleep to the rhythmic sweeps of Mrs. Thompson's broom on the porch next door. I wake up when it stops abruptly, and now I can hear Soda calling, "Good morning Mrs. Thompson." He seems cheerful, but that doesn't mean anything. I've finally learned that Soda can be in the worst mood but still make people believe it's gotta be the best damn day of his life. He's in some conversation with her about tomatoes and her offer to give us some extra that she's grown in her tiny square garden.

I sit up to look out, watching him walk the two steps it takes to be in her yard. She simply won't let him refuse and she's piling gobs of tomatoes into his grocery bag. His charm is beaming off him as he thanks her profusely, and he's still smiling and talking to her while he comes through the door, then lets his face drop when he's finally in, closing the door behind him with his foot, breathing an exhausted sigh.

When he sees me sitting up on the couch he says, "Here, you wanna fuckin' tomato? Cause we've got'em now Pony. The motherlode of tomatoes." I'm pissed he's made me laugh cause it hurts my head, but I can't stop, while I bring my head down into my hands, feeling bad for essentially making fun of sweet old Mrs. Thompson, a family friend for years.

Soda's unaffected by my laughter as he heads toward the kitchen with his bag. "Guess I missed Darry, huh?"

"Yeah, but I know he's at the Johnson place today if you need him." I'm making my slow and careful ascent from the couch, only cause I gotta piss, and it takes a good five minutes to even get to the bathroom. Soda's scarfing down a sandwich as he talks to me while I go, the door left wide open.

"You look like you're hurtin' bad Pony. How you feelin'?"

I feel a thousand times worse than him and he probably hasn't even slept. I don't understand how he does it. I zip up and turn on the shower and answer truthfully, "I feel like I've gone about ten rounds with Joe Frazier. And I gotta look for a job today." I notice in the mirror my hair is in all different directions in the back, while the front looks entirely pressed down.

"A shower'll fix ya right up," he says, but I notice his eyes are on the dog tags, following them closely as I take them off and put them on the sink. He stops eating and stares a hole through them, and I'm getting concerned he might be having some flashback. But when he closes his eyes, it looks like he's touched by some soft emotion. I can see his shoulders relax, breathing out as if the air has meaning, and then he looks at me like he's gonna tell me something.

"I ran into my friend Patty today." I wonder what this has to do with the dog tags but I wait for the rest. His next sentence is mumbled though, and I can't hear him over the blasting shower head.

"What?" I ask. This time he looks to the sink, and I watch his mouth move, but I still can't hear him. I close the shower curtain behind me, like that's gonna help. "Soda, I can't hear you, what?" I repeat, and now I can tell he's in a real bad mood by the way he tosses his sandwich in the trash can, a tomato slice tumbling out.

His voice is far louder than it needs to be, and he over annunciates his words, his hands cupped around his mouth like he's shouting across some vast divide. "She asked about you. Patty asked about you, said something about you calling her." His hands drop, and in a more normal tone he says, "Call her if you want." With that he turns for his room, and I'm confused as hell. But that's not unusual with him anymore. I guess Darry went hard on him last night and that's what's bugging him. God I dread tonight.

Cleaned up and somewhat satisfied with my appearance, I knock on Soda's door. "I'm asleep," I hear him call, his standard answer since he was thirteen and didn't want to be bothered by a little brother.

Ignoring his negative attitude, I bring my mouth up close to the door and nicely say, "Yeah, I know. Can I borrow your car today Soda?" I step back when I hear his bed creaking, his heavy footsteps approaching.

The door swings open and his face looks wild and his words are harsh and quick. "Yes Ponyboy. Take my car. You can have it." He then walks over and jerks his top dresser drawer open, rummaging through until he finds a little scrap of paper. He slaps a phone number in my hand, with a P.C. written above. "You can have all of it...everything." He finally seems finished with his outburst.

I'm nineteen but Soda's got me feeling ten, and I swallow hard, then try to fix it. "Don't worry about it, Soda. I can just take my bike or call Curly or somethin'." I have no clue why he's this bent out of shape.

The air is charged between us and all of a sudden Soda runs his hands down his face and looks to the ceiling groaning, then shakes his head, and I'm surprised when I hear a small, sad laugh hidden in his exhaled breath. He's now looking at me almost wistful like, puts a hand on my shoulder and with a voice that's soft and kind he tells me, "Pony, you actually do deserve everything. Everything that's good."

I can tell I'm forgiven, but I don't know for what. I guess I don't need to know since it's over. "My keys are by the fruit bowl," he adds.

I look down absentmindedly at the scrap of paper I'm still holding, and Soda tries to be lighthearted but he only ends up sounding tired. "Oh, her Dad's super strict. So ya know, gotta kinda turn it on when you call her house." His smile isn't fully formed, but enough to tell me it's all okay again.

As I make my way down the walk, I fold up the phone number and slip it in my pocket. I wasn't gonna use it; Patty's sweet and kinda cute I guess, a little too zany for my taste, but Soda seems to think I should, so I guess I'll call her. For him. What can one date hurt?

I slide in the car and try to decide where to go first. It's lunch time so I set off for Curly's. He couldn't come out with us last night, and maybe I can catch up with him over a burger or something. Can't start a job hunt on an empty stomach. Plus I want to have some kind of fun before the shit hits the fan tonight.

Even though it's a good thing and it's way past due, and even though I'll be backing Darry, ready to be tough on Soda myself, I still feel sorry for him and what he's about to be up against. Cause when Darry Curtis says he's ready for shit to get real, then you're in for some real fucking shit.

* * *

My day crumbles around me and I still can't sleep. The blinds are shut tight, and I've got my room pretty dark considering it's sunny outside. I take a hit off a joint to relax, its orange glowing tip signaling my location, but I remind myself nobody's tracking me down anymore. So I breathe easier. But I still put it out.

I lie back on the bed and feel my heart racing too fast, a sure sign I overdid it last night. I start using my relaxation tricks I learned when I was balls deep in enemy territory, hiding and watching, and my life depended on me being still. But my tricks in the Vietnam jungle don't hold the same magic in my American bedroom, and my mind is running as fast as my heart.

I'm glad I told Pony that Patty was interested. I can't have the guilt of standing in someone's way. Don't I want the best for her anyway? And besides, Patty's not mine to keep or to let someone have. I don't own her. But God, I wish I did. I want to _own_ her. And that thought right there lets me know my thinking ain't right at all.

 _The wound in my eyebrow weeps blood and pus, the stitches busted, and I try and squint to keep it from leaking in my eye. The bandana on my forehead is so wet with sweat it can't do it's job of sopping up messes anymore, but I keep still, gun drawn, eye on my target._

 _The screams of the woman beside me I'm sure are pleas, but her language is gibberish and I don't give two shits who this farmer is to her, way out in the field, about to get his head blown off. But her begging me is drawing too much attention to her little house I've overtaken. So I have to knock her out, pistol whip her. It's better for the both of us, and now I can take my shot from the window, a clean hit right to his chest, and this kill brings my count up neck and neck with Harper's. I just might win this week._

 _We fill time playing cards waiting for a radio call to signal our next move, not sure if we'll move to the village south or west of here. "I'm telling you, Curtis can't miss, man." I'm pissed Nolan says this, sure I've just been jinxed._

 _"I'm just glad we got that fucker," I say not liking the cards I'm dealt. "I know he was the little shit shooting at us all damn night, keeping me awake."_

 _A shrieking suddenly erupts from the woman, and I'm actually surprised that she's come to, but I see Reed is dragging her to the bedroom to quiet her down. If that's what you wanna call it._

 _We've been on this long range recon mission for awhile now, and it doesn't take long to become a killing machine when your orders are to shoot down anything that moves. We lost all sense of humanity a long time ago. Especially when the only humans you run into are the enemies. Not people. Certainly not to be trusted. That sweet looking little old lady down the road will sure as shit pull an AK-47 out of her skirt and blow your ass away. I've seen it. This is a free fire zone, and if they ain't evacuated yet, they've just signed their death warrants. They don't want to see me coming, and I'm really good at huntin'em down._

 _"Your eye's looking bad again," Nolan tells me as if I ain't noticed._

 _"That's cause Greer stitched me and he ain't no damn medic. We all know he's really just a no good dealer in disguise." And we have a good laugh at that, since the Army makes sure our LRRP medics are well stocked with all the speed we need to get us through._

 _Just then Reed comes out with a smug look on his face and Harper stands up like he's gonna get his turn. I throw down my hand and say "I fold," then stand up and tell Harper,_ _"I want her." My look and my voice are threatening enough to let him know he'll have to back down or fight me to get a chance at her. "She's mine. I found her," and Harper can respect that logic. He nods his head, sitting his sorry ass back down._

I hear Pony come back, his car door slams, and my thoughts are jumbled. My hand reaches up to feel the soft scar of my eyebrow, just to see if the war really happened. Every time my fingers find it, a part of me inside revolts, dying at the memories. It's hard to switch back from warrior. It's hard to see the beauty in things once you taste the ugliness. I look at my hands, my right one still sensitive, and through the darkness I can see the hole I punched. My parents didn't raise me this way. And these killing hands will never come clean. I just want to be young again.

But while I despise the memories, I can't regret my actions or any life I took. It was them or me. They were the ones in the wrong. And the screams and cries did nothing but make me angry.

 _"Shh.." I try and shut her up as I close the door behind me. Who can be calm in her position though? She's in hysterics._

 _But she doesn't know I'm only here to give her a break._

 _I sit at the foot of her bed, never touching her. Claiming her as mine, I'm protecting her from Harper's sick fetish. And I'm just wanting some shut-eye. I don't even look at her really. Don't talk. She's finally quieted thank God, but kicks at me and I move further down. I have enough room to curl up at the bottom of the bed, and shut my eyes, take a breather. And try not to think. I must've drifted off._

 _The knock at the door startles us both and she's screaming her nonsense again. I'm pissed someone's trying to take away my time and I really want her to quit running that mouth. I'm this close to gagging her. I undo my pants to make this look legit so those fuckers leave us alone. I open the door and say gruffly, "Occupied."_

 _It's just news we got the call and we're moving out again. I go back to her and all those screams that scald me. I roughly grab her face with my hand and hiss through clenched teeth with so much anger, "Shut that fuckin' mouth." As I work to cut her wrists away from the bed I tell her soothingly, "It's okay. It's all over."_

 _But she doesn't understand me, any more than I understand myself._

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	7. Chapter 7

**THE TRIP**

PART VII

"I'm tellin' ya Pony, the minute I saw Soda's eyes just beggin' for a fight, I knew I'd been playin' this all wrong." Darry's standing by me at the stove, filling me in on what I missed with Soda last night while I stir the boiling spaghetti, and I'm worried Soda can hear us back in his bedroom. Darry's never been good at talking low.

"So, how are we gonna do it?" I say as softly as I can, to try and set a quieter example.

Darry pulls the colander out and sets it in the sink for me, but he doesn't take my hint cause his voice is even louder. "How are we gonna do it?" he repeats my question as I walk over with the pot and dump it all out to strain. We're both engulfed by a cloud of steam that erupts from the sink below us when Darry answers with a half grin, "We're gonna fuck his shit up, that's how we're gonna do it."

For me, Darry's ready to rumble statement doesn't translate into how we're really gonna handle Soda. I still need the logistics. I'm doling out three plates of spaghetti and meat sauce onto the table while I try and get Darry to explain our plan of attack, cause I need to be fully prepared for this.

"I get that we're calling him on his shit Darry, but do we have a strategy? Are we goin' in calm or comin' in hot?" I lick some sauce off the palm of my hand. "I mean, how the hell am I supposed to act?"

"How are you supposed to act?" he says back to me, always one for repeating my questions like I'm an idiot for having them. He sits at the table and whips his napkin out, puts it in his lap, then looking at the spaghetti, he tucks it into his shirt collar. "I don't know.. act normal? And don't back down. Go on and call him for supper."

Oh God, I don't want to be the one that lures him into the lion's den, and I slowly walk to his door and tap on it, hoping he's asleep and doesn't come out for his own sake. But I hear him stir, and lean my ear to the door to listen for more signs of life.

"Yeah," he says like he just woke up.

"C'mon to supper," I call to him. "Spaghetti's ready."

It's not by accident I've made his favorite meal. Sheets are rustling and I head back to the table, to Darry, to our side of the fence. I've been waiting for this talk for a year and now that it's here, I want to slip out the nearest window. Something about it doesn't feel right.

But my oldest brother seems set on beast mode, and he looks at me while we wait for our unsuspecting opponent. Darry's eyes hold his confidence and manage to build mine when I meet them. I'm reminded we're ready for this. We have to do this. We love Soda too much to be soft on him. And Darry's right. We've played this all wrong. It's time to pull the bandaids. And I'm sick remembering again how I've never been good at that. Thank God Darry was born to rip things apart, no matter who it hurts.

He walks in the kitchen looking haggard, his hair's a mess, he hasn't shaved or changed his clothes since yesterday morning. In short, he looks like shit. I immediately want to bail. I can tell by his eyes alone he's had a rough afternoon. I knew it before I left today he was acting weird.

 _Abort, abort_ I'm trying to signal Darry telepathically. But he can't read me. He doesn't want to.

Soda sits in his seat and looks up at me with a tired but thankful smile. "My favorite. Thanks Pony."

We eat in silence for awhile, our forks scraping against the plates the only sound. The air is heavy and I wonder if he can feel it. I look at Darry again, silently begging him to wait, but another part of me knowing he's right to not let this go on another minute.

 _I'm embarrassed to be heard, so I'm hiding in my room, crying over Soda getting in trouble. Dad took him back to his room and let him have it when he got home. And I can't stand the thought. It's too late to catch my escaped sob and stuff it back in; it's already signaled Darry who happens to be walking by my door. He sticks his head in and asks what's wrong, and I want the bed to swallow me whole cause I know Darry's surely ashamed to have a nine year old brother who still cries in his room._

 _"What are you crying for?" he asks bluntly. And when I manage to tell him I'm sad for Soda, he smirks and shakes his head at me. "You do know that Soda's out there in the living room smiling and talking and watching TV with Dad don't you? He's already over it."_

 _I nod and feel stupid, wipe my eyes and tell him to leave. Darry will never understand why I can't handle Soda being in trouble or in pain or sick or hurt. Cause I don't understand it myself._

So tonight, I have to gather a different kind of strength I've never really tapped into before and go against my grain. I have to hurt my brother on purpose.

* * *

Pony keeps catching my eyes while we eat, and I know this is gonna be hard for him. Soda's his weakness. It's hard for me too though.

I'd never admit it, but Soda's the one person who makes me nervous in any kind of fight. It's great when he's on your side, and he's fun to watch when you're the spectator, but it's a whole other story when you're the one up against him. You never know how he's gonna act. He's a wild card and hard to control. That's why I couldn't give Pony a strategy. Why bother making one when Soda's the one who's gonna lead? But after years of going head to head in arguments, years of watching all of his different methods of attack, I'm pretty decent battling against those head games he plays so well. At least I hope so.

There's never a good time to start and just when I'm about to, the tension is cut, literally by Soda's knife, when he drops it against his plate. "You two want me to leave?" He's looking between Pony and me. "So you can figure out how to handle me?" He looks more irritated than usual.

I wipe my entire face with my napkin just trying to pull my last thoughts together, then calmly lay it by my plate. "No Soda, we're done with that. Pony and I want to be upfront. The way you want it. Real, right?" We both just wait to see how he'll respond.

I knew Soda would smile. His voice is soft. "So this is where it happens huh? How you feeling Pony? You in on this too?" I can tell he's trying to psych Pony out. He's good at that.

Pony sounds strong when he answers, "Yeah Soda. I'm definitely in on this too." But in Ponyboy fashion, he's trying to reason with him. "Hey, I can understand why you're having a hard time, Soda. Why you're doing all these...bad things. We're both on your side, ya know."

Soda pushes his plate away, and whispers harshly under his breath, "Get this shit away from me," then pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and strikes his match, lights his smoke, then watches while the fire burns down to the tips of his fingers and he finally shakes out the flame. Then he takes a minute to get comfortable in his chair. All of his behavior has a purpose here. It's like he wants us to watch him. And it's hard to tell anymore if he's on something or not.

I'm tired of waiting. "Soda," I say firmly but without anger, "You can't go on like this anymore. I get why you're escaping everything. But you're killing yourself. And we're not gonna let that happen." I motion towards Pony. "We're strong enough to hear the truth. You need to get this shit off your chest, man. Really let us in."

He exhales a quick huff through his nose, and his smile looks dangerous. "You're right Dar. I do need to get some things off my chest." He then looks at Pony and reaches over to pat his arm. "But we don't wanna scare little Ponyboy here now do we?"

I smile back at him to meet him at his game. I've seen him do this before. But I hate he's choosing Pony to go after tonight. I guess he wants to knock us off balance and he smells weakness.

I'm surprised Pony looks more angry than uncomfortable. He snatches his arm away and tells Soda, "I can handle whatever you bring Soda." I'm reminded again that Pony's definitely not a kid.

Soda's eyes widen in a kind of sick delight. "That's good then. Real good. Y'all want some beers before we continue? Might help," and his eyes now narrow in a glare. "Pony I'm glad to see you're up and at 'em after last night."

I slam my hand on the table and the plates and glasses shake. "Dammit Soda, get real. Stop with this crazy bullshit. Pony and I want to hear what the fuck you're doing, who the fuck you're doing, when, where, why and how the fuck you're doing... cause it don't look too good from we're standing." My voice takes up the whole room as I go on. "We want you to be honest with us so we can fight this, so you don't have to do it alone. We left you to it for a year, but it stops tonight. No more. I'm in charge now."

Soda's slow clap makes me want to come across this table and strangle him. His cigarette dangles from his grinning mouth that mocks me, "Damn, that was some speech. Almost like you was in some movie." He's actually laughing a little.

Now Pony's fury comes into play when he starts mouthing, "Fuck you Soda. You're being a dick." And Pony's fallen into the trap that's set by Soda. This is exactly how he wants it.

Soda taps his ash into his spaghetti, and gets ready to take him on. I try and steer him back to me by being calmer, "Soda, we just want you well. We're beggin' you, please stop all this." And my emotions are taking over now. I softly say, "I can't imagine what you're carrying Soda."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute," Soda holds his hand up to stop me, and his smile has left his face like it was never there, and he's leaning in with his ear, acting like he's trying to hear better. "You're beggin' me? That's beggin'?" He shakes his head and looks right at Pony. "Okay, alright, you want real? I shot boys younger than you, Ponyboy Curtis. In the head. Boys who were cryin' and beggin' me to please please please, oh please just let'em live." His hands are in a begging clasp and he looks back to me and drops them. "You're gonna have to try somethin' else. I'm afraid beggin' ain't what it used to be." I feel as sick as Pony looks.

Soda's on a roll now. "And Darry, I wanna hear from College Boy over here, not you. I wanna hear what Mr. Philosopher thinks about his brother." I don't know how Pony isn't crumbling under Soda's intimidating stare, and while I'm shocked by Soda's attack on Pony, I'm just as shocked over Pony's sudden ability to stand against it.

Pony shifts in his chair, leans forward, and matches him glare for glare. His voice is calm, but his words are packed with silent aggression. "Soda, whatcha wanna know? I'll sit here all night and tell you what I think about you," he says with a drawl almost as good as Dad's.

"Well praise the Lord, it's about fuckin' time," Soda raises his hand to the ceiling. "So tell me then why you think I'm so screwed up. Those psychology classes Darry helps pay for had to teach you somethin'."

"Soda lay off him, " I warn, trying to gain back control.

But Soda won't stop picking. "Shhh Darry, I wanna hear Pony explain to me how he says he understands why I do these bad things. My bad behavior. Did he read it in a book?" Now Soda's up on his feet, starting to walk over to Pony's side of the table. I'm in position, ready to intervene, cause it's really starting to escalate fast.

Pony stares ahead at nothing, his jaw clenched as if his teeth might shatter, his cheeks blossoming red, while Soda stands beside his chair, looking down on him, talking to him with a menacing calm.

"Will you tell me how I feel Pony, cause you must understand. All those mornings you went to your little high school and pledged allegiance to that big ole flag up in the corner of the classroom." His hand is on his on his chest now as he bends down so his face can be right next to Pony's. "Every single morning you put your hand over your heart and spoke those words with all them other boys and girls, 'bout liberty and justice and our one nation, under God. While I was gettin' my ass shot at in some jungle, shittin' in a hole and sleepin' with one eye open. You have no idea what I saw, what I did, but you're the smart one, you tell me how I feel, why I am what I am. Please Ponyboy. C'mon. Why don't you give it the ole college try."

Pony might be the quiet one, but he's never taken anything lying down, and as I expected, he's finally erupting. "Fuck you," he spits out and when I see him rise to his feet, I fly out of my chair but not before he's managed to grab Soda and run him backwards against the wall, pinning him. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be prying these two apart from Pony's death grip. I thought for sure if Soda was gonna go after anyone at all it'd be me. I'm so pissed at him I can't see straight, while I work to control this wild bull that is Ponyboy Curtis. And with all we've put up with, I don't blame him one damn bit.

It's been awhile since I've seen Pony fight and I can see he's still got it, but Soda's a class A fighter and right now I can tell he's not even trying much anymore. I manage to pull Pony up and shove him away, and with my other hand I give Soda's head a good hard slap, "You're a grown ass man for Christ's sake." I walk Pony away from Soda but it still takes all I've got. It's not easy to calm him down when he's like this.

Nothing about this is healthy or functional. My adrenaline's up while my heart is down in my stomach, and I'm wondering how the hell we got here. I don't know who we are anymore. I've lost complete control of everything I worked so hard to build. I feel sick.

They've both been knocked around good by flying elbows and errant jabs. Pony's lip is split and Soda's getting a bruise on his cheek. Pony's still riled and he points and yells over my shoulder at Soda, "Hey you don't just get to tell us we didn't have a hard time while you were gone motherfucker," and in his voice only I can hear all the pain he still carries from that awful year.

Soda's checking out his shirt that was ripped in the fray, but mutters back a simple, "That all you got?"

I'm trying to convince Pony that it ain't worth fighting Soda when he's like this, reminding him this isn't even really our brother. "Soda, back down. You too Pony, it's over."

"I'm sorry Pony, I know you had it real rough," Soda's now giving his half-ass apology and I tell Pony to go walk it off, and Pony finally nods, but I feel every muscle in his arms are tense and at the ready, still not believing the fight's over.

They're still spewing hate and going hard with their slurs even while Pony's walking out the back door. "Fuckin' drug addict pussy," Pony gets the last word as the door slams and his face is so angry I don't even recognize him. I hear him spit his blood out into the night as he takes off. I can breathe a little better now that he's gone, but the chaos from the night is still swirling around me and I take a minute to get my bearings.

And Soda's starting to leave the scene, before we've ever even touched the heart of the matter. Cause he blindsided Pony and knew exactly how to bypass me. My blood pressure spikes and my breathing gets heavier when I watch him walking away like he just won this war in our kitchen. And he's got another thing coming if he thinks I'm through with him. I haven't even started. I didn't get through the last six years by being soft. He may be able to manhandle his little brother, but he sure as shit can't beat me.

I don't even feel my legs move as I follow him, reach him by his bedroom door. Grab his arm and whip him around. "You ready to take me on now?" I say through clenched teeth and by his eyes I can tell he's gonna be a little more compliant with me and my anger. I'm a whole different kind of fight.

But he maintains cool and says, "You're who I've been waitin' on."

I'm used to him and all his power plays, but I try and remind myself he ain't nothing but a little kid to me. "Soda, it's been a long time since we've gone at it. I think you've forgotten how low I can punch."

War of words is Soda's forte and he loves these back and forths. He smiles and says, "Bring it Darry, I ain't afraid to take you on."

"You sure? Cause I know all about you Soda, and this one might sting," and he thinks this is all a threat. He's cocky and full of himself while he waits for it, expecting me to list off all of his deviant behavior for the past year, but no, I hit him with a power play of my own. "And I'm not talking about all the drugs or how you've turned Tulsa into your own little den of sin." His eyebrows raise a little, wondering what I have on him.

And I throw it out there. Everything I know about Vietnam. What Steve told me and what I looked up on my own. I even throw things in that may or may not apply to him. I just want him to know I see right through him. If he wants raw, he's gonna get it from me.

"I know what you did, what you saw over there Sodapop. And I know how you killed people. Or was it murder? I even know 'bout them girls gettin' raped." Finally, he's showing a sign of something. I can practically see his mind circling in his head and a little of his breath is knocked out. He stares at nothing and can only touch his scar lightly while I go on. "What Soda? Cat got your tongue? Sounds like somethin' I said might've hit a nerve." I go in for the kill. "How many of them girls did you rape anyway?" Soda's color is drained and he shakes his head and looks at me.

"God none, Darry," is his pained whisper. And though I believe him, or want to, I'm still not finished.

"How should I know? You've been punishing yourself real good that's for sure. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But I know you were around it. Maybe you tortured some innocent people? Cut off a few ears? You sure killed a lot of men I know that. I also know how skilled you were at it." He bristles at this. "Pony knows all of it too. We've always known."

I've finally stripped him naked and he doesn't like it. I smile just like he always does in the middle of a good fight. "You really think you were hiding all this?"

He suddenly turns to head out of the house and I'm on his heels, but after I've just stabbed him I'm quick to change my tune. "We've always known and we don't think any less of you. We're amazed by you Sodapop, hell you've got a kid brother that damn near worships you," but he's not listening, still taking off, running away again, running for sick comfort.

I stand on the porch and stop him in his tracks when I tell him, "I had a nice conversation today with that girlfriend of yours. She sure was friendly, excited to meet the oldest Curtis brother...at first."

He's frozen on the sidewalk, but I hear him ask, "Gloria?"

"Yeah," I chuckle. "She's a handful. But I made it clear not to let you in no more. She gave you up real easy actually. When I gave her a few threats she could understand."

He turns around and looks at me with a hatred I never knew existed in that soul of his. He tears back into the house, roughly bumping his shoulder against mine on the way, and the slam of his bedroom door rattles the entire house. I'm alone on the porch. I can feel my mother turning in her grave after hearing the kinds of wicked and impure things that were discussed inside the walls of her home tonight. And though I feel grimy, like I need another shower, I finished what I set out to do tonight, at least.

He's home.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	8. Chapter 8

_Steve refers to Soda as a "Lurp" in this story. This is the nickname for soldiers that were LRRP, long-range reconnaissance patrol._

 **THE TRIP**

PART VIII

I slam the bedroom door and in panic, turn in a half circle, looking for an escape from myself. But Darry's put the gates up high tonight and me snorting lines of coke from Gloria's tits looks to be off the table. I turn on my music and try to drown out all the jarring echoes haunting me from earlier, all those low blows I aimed at Ponyboy. I sit, my head in hands, and groan my misery at what I've done. How could I attack my brothers, the only good I have left? Haven't I learned never to bite the hands that feed? I hate myself as much as I hate the war and I reach for the only rescue, turn off the lights and wait.

I lie as still as I can, trying so hard to be patient, my body writhing and itching for the last of the tablet to melt into my tongue and tie it. To steal me away. I guess this is how it feels to lose your mind and I wonder how long I have before they stick me in some asylum. I wish Darry would pummel me with his fists. I want Ponyboy to finish me off. I need the jaws of Hell to open wide and swallow me down where I belong. All the words I said tonight race around the cyclone of a dark and spinning room and can't be caught, won't be stuffed back in unused. They laugh like witches and taunt the very person who formed them. Out there forever now, they're burning homes and bridges, setting fires and destroying a family that can never be fixed.

Everything slows and my lungs deflate, but I no longer care if they ever fill again. Hands of gravity catch me, pulling me back into exploding colors that shoot through a million miles of veins, till now flat and undiscovered. I'm finally lost inside myself, finally contained thank God. I can't be trusted on the outside. Not even with my brothers, especially not my brothers who I can't stop hurting.

I shake and shiver, tears dried out and screams unheard, weak and trapped in the tomb of a strong body. I silently scream for Darry to help me. I beg for Ponyboy to kill me. To please, just fucking do it. I dig my fingers so hard against my chest I might just pierce through flesh and bone as I set out to twist my charred and blackened heart. To hurl it out into the night like those grenades that still define me.

* * *

My body's about as limp as this spaghetti I'm scraping off our plates and I stand at the sink, forcing my arms to move and work, making myself take one breath after another. The fire that rained down an hour ago in this kitchen has left me shellshocked and I stare out the window at the dark nothing, until my eyes blink against flashes of lightning. Pony's out there somewhere, and I think about driving around to find him, but I don't dare leave the ticking time bomb.

Once the kitchen's been cleaned I look down the hallway to Soda's door, wondering if I should check on him, but not yet ready to face the aftermath. So I stand frozen on the edge of his battlefield, or rather, the jungle that followed him home. The ring of the phone makes me jump and I realize how edgy I am, even catching myself taking on Pony's habit of biting my thumbnail. I shake my head and pick up the receiver, hoping it's him. "Hello."

"Hey Darry, Steve. Figured you'd wanna know the kid's at my place." It's a place I wouldn't have thought Pony would pick, but I guess it makes some sense, considering Steve's as close to Soda as we are. Steve knows him better in certain ways than even we do. Maybe not anymore, nobody can understand him now that Soda's a shadow of himself. "Damn man," he goes on, "never in a million years would I pick them two to go at it like that." I remember Pony's split lip, and my heavy sigh is enough for Steve to know I'm not in the mood to go over it with him, that things are looking pretty bleak on our end, and so he says, "Well, guess it looks like Pony's staying over. Tell Soda I'll come visit him tomorrow ok?...if he's up for it."

 _If he's up for it._ How the hell did it get this bad? My stomach drops when I remember how hopeful we were back in the winter when Steve came home, not long after Soda's arrest.

 _I cup my hands around my mouth to blow warmth on them, try to loosen up my stiff fingers for this basketball game that's heating up a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon. Two-Bit dribbles between his legs and puts on the fake, then drives it in for a layup, easily making the basket that no longer has a net. The backboard's had its share of abuse hung above our shed door for years, low enough to dunk the hell out of it and mangle the rim, a feat that's been successfully executed by every male in our neighborhood more than once, including Dad back in the day. Games are constantly in time-out to reattach the damn thing._

 _As Keith and I argue over the score, a familiar voice joins the insults that are now being thrown more than the ball. "I see y'all two still can't make a shot to save your ass." Our heads whip around simultaneously to find a smirking Steve and our whoops and hollers that erupt can be heard clear down Independence Avenue. I knew I missed Steve, but having him standing right in front of me after the year we've had, I'm only now understanding to what extent. And as much as Soda's hippie look shocked me when he returned, I'm just as shocked over Steve's clean cut appearance._

 _We're laughing and hugging, slapping backs and grasping hands, but when the screen door slams from the porch behind us, Two-Bit and I both know to back away and clear the path for the one who slammed it and finally entered on the scene. Soda's quiet and still, and I can tell for a split second he isn't believing his best friend is real and not one of those troublemaking ghosts that sometimes try to trick him. I watch Steve's eyes widen seeing Soda with all that hair, but almost immediately they return to a squint. "Well, God almighty Soda, looks like the jungle life suited ya," and I've never seen Steve's grin so wide._

 _Soda glides down the steps in bare feet and his t-shirt sleeves were cut off a few years back, but he's unaffected by the weather. For him, it's always summer. His untied hair gets whipped around in the gusts as he makes his way to Steve. He's shaking his head even as he's smiling, and he's laughing deep in his chest even as his eyes are glistening. He has a thousand different emotions all right there on his face and in his eyes, but his voice remains his smooth drawl. "Hey man, welcome home."_

 _Their reunion is enough to melt the iciest heart and my goosebumps ain't from the wind. Their hug is almost violent, crushing, but these first grade friends remain embraced for a long while, and I hear only a couple of sniffs, then Soda's voice, too soft and choked to understand, meant only for Steve's ear._

 _Whatever he tells him, it causes Steve to give out a hearty laugh that might just border on tears, and he grasps him even tighter, saying, "I know, I know."_

 _All of us too much a family to feel awkward, Two-Bit and I stand outside their circle, witnesses to the moment, and I'm wishing Pony was home right now. We've both waited for Steve's return, banking on it as a somewhat lifeline for Soda. I smile over at Two-Bit who gets it. He's watched me put my eggs in this basket for awhile now._

 _Steve breaks from the hug and looks Soda up and down. "I heard you was a Lurp but didn't believe it till now. Holy shit, look at you man."_

"Lemme talk to him," I hear Pony say in the background and then the shuffle of the phone being passed. "Darry," he starts and I can already tell he's still worked up, pissed. I don't blame him, and I wish he was here so I could talk him down. "I ain't staying in that house tonight."

"I know. I understand," I assure him, but calling it _that house_ doesn't sit well with me. "Ugly scene. I'm sorry it went down that way." I'm wondering if he blames me.

I'm glad when he starts to cool down a few notches and asks about Soda. So I give him a summary of our little discussion and how I got him to stay home. "You met with Glory?" Pony asks loudly with surprise.

"Lord no I didn't meet with her; it was a bluff. I don't know that girl from Adam." Soda can't possibly hear over his music but I still try and talk low. "I couldn't even remember her name. He was about to take off and that's all I could think to throw out there. But it worked. Shit maybe I really should meet with her. Tell her to back off."

"Probably should," he agrees. "I can track her down. His friend Patty'll probably have some info on her, and I happen to have her number in my pocket right now. Guess I could call her tomorrow."

My eyebrows shoot up, wondering why Pony's carrying around the phone number of Soda's friend, but I've got bigger fish to fry.

After a long pause he says, "Maybe coming home is a mistake. Maybe I should've stayed on for summer classes." His voice sounds lost.

"That right there is exactly what I didn't wanna hear," I say, my voice escalating as I stand up from the chair, getting angry that Pony would feel anything but welcome here. "You know we want you home." And now I'm so mad at Soda all over again, I can't see straight.

"We?" he questions. "You mean _you_. Soda's obviously got a problem with me."

"Oh hell Pony, Soda's got a problem with the universe right now. And haven't you heard you hurt the ones you love the most?" And I notice how mean my voice is sounding at this moment.

I go softer, but still firm. "This is your home. And you'll be living in it this summer."

 _And that's that_.

"Yeah ok. See ya tomorrow." Pony's voice is back to himself and there's relief in that at least.

I hang up the phone softly and sit back down in the chair. Dad's chair. My chair. Close my eyes and rub my temples. After all we've been through over the years, this is the one time I'm thankful my dad isn't here to see how bad I've let this get. One kid brother won't even sleep here and the other's locked up in his bedroom drowning in his fucked up druggie music. And my jaw is setting tighter and my temper is building. My leg is bouncing with the pressure that's coming up from my chest until I erupt off the chair and grab the closest object. The leftover rage from the fight fuels the force in my arm, and I can't see anything until the ashtray I throw explodes into glass fragments against the wall, mixing with a cloud of ash.

I don't feel any better. Why can't Soda just be normal? "Damn you!" I yell to nobody, to him, to myself, and to life that always seems stacked up against us. I can't stay here a minute more but I don't go far. I escape through the rain to the shed for a bit to calm down. Turn on the radio for the end of the game, listen to the White Sox beat the shit out of the Royals and pray I can pull this back together.

* * *

You'd think Evie was the hostess of the Taj Mahal or some grand plantation home the way she hands us both beers and me a pillow and blanket. I guess she's proud to have a guest in this new apartment she and Steve share, and she maneuvers sideways through the tiniest living room you've ever seen, then disappears to the bedroom to give us space, which I appreciate.

Steve and Evie actually seem to be going places. He's taking advantage of the benefits of the GI Bill, going to junior college classes while they both work, saving up for things like this apartment, and more than likely a wedding. Steve actually made it, out of Vietnam and out of his father's house. I swig some of my beer and let it sit in my mouth, the thought of Soda being left behind making it hard to swallow. But I manage to gulp it down and say, "Wonder if he'll show up for his shift tomorrow." Steve just shrugs. How could he possibly know?

I don't really know why my feet brought me here. But I know I felt better when he answered the door. I felt better when I told him about the fight while he stayed still and quiet, listening to every word, shaking his head every now and then over some of the things that were said. I guess like some kid I wanted to tell on Soda, but only to the person who wouldn't take my side. Only to the person who always champions Soda and would defend him to the death. Cause I may be furious with Soda, but I couldn't bear someone else being mad at him.

We mindlessly watch tv until I can't hold it in. "Why can't he just leave it behind Steve?" I ask desperately. And I know Steve can tell I'm comparing them. Why Steve came back so put together and Soda's a mess. But I can't help it. Steve sighs and puts his beer down and throws a couple of peanuts in his mouth. I can tell he's gathering his thoughts.

"We were in two different wars Ponyboy." And he's said this before but it's just not good enough. I roll my eyes, not caring that he sees.

He takes a breath and starts in. "I saw real action only a handful of times and those were nothing compared to his combat. Most of my time I spent behind the lines. But the guys like Soda, when those guys would come back from their patrols, they'd roll into our bases looking like they'd just been in Armageddon and spent some time with the devil himself." Steve's eyes look disturbed and I feel my stomach clench when I think of my brother walking through so much evil.

My silence prompts Steve to keep going. "They were a whole different breed and they had all our respect, but we mostly steered clear of 'em. Especially if we'd run into them out on R&R at a bar. Blowing off steam, they'd be the drunkest, meanest, baddest motherfuckers you ever saw. And had every right to be. That's why I could never imagine Soda being one of 'em. But he was one of the best. Has the counts to prove it. Blows my mind." Steve looks up like he's thinking, then adds, "He may've been mean in the jungle, but I'd bet a million dollars Soda was still nice to every person on every base and in every bar he walked into over there." The thought brings tears to my eyes, cause I'm sure it's true.

Now he puts his hand on my shoulder. And I look down at it cause it isn't often Steve and I get this close. But he soon pulls it off and grabs his beer, clears his throat. "Your brother's a hero Pony. He's sparing you and Darry from the truth. Won't even discuss it with me but I heard talk over there. He's survived shit you don't even want to know. And sure he's going through some hard times right now. He ain't quite himself, the drugs and all. But can't you see him in there somewhere? I know I do." I nod because he's right. I see some of the real Soda everyday as a matter of fact.

He tips his bottle to mine and says, "He'll pull out of this 'fore long kid. He has to."

* * *

I'm knee deep in boxes, still in the shed, looking through old stuff, not quite ready to go in just yet. The baseball game's long over and the music's back on. I'm not paying attention to it though until Scarborough Fair makes my head raise up. Pony liked this song a few years ago, but made me swear not to tell the guys, cause it wasn't very "tuff", and seeing how they teased him without mercy over liking that one Moody Blues song, I can see why. I chuckle thinking about it and sit on my weight bench, listening to this medieval type tune while I go through old papers to see what can be tossed.

I'd never really listened before, and the dreaminess of it reminds me of Pony. But now I'm realizing two songs have been woven together and I'm finally paying attention to the lyrics of the song that's running underneath. Once I hear _Sleeps unaware of the clarion call_ I put my papers down and lean back and reach to turn the radio up, letting the song, everything sink in. There's something about a _grave_ and _silvery tears_ and now I know why Pony ate this up. Of course there'd be a dark undercurrent, and I'm reminded of his eighth grade poem, one of the darkest things I've ever read, that led to a conference between me and his teachers who thought we should worry about him, but they were wrong. Pony's still writing that way today. Always sliding the dark in, right beneath the light. "Aint that like life anyway Darry?" he'd asked at only thirteen, when I questioned his reason for writing it.

 _A soldier cleans and polishes a gun_ is underneath all that rosemary and thyme shit, and now I hear a song that's really about war, and clashing against the innocence of the main song and its airy notes, it's all the more haunting. My stomach drops by the time they get to _Generals order their soldiers to kill_ and the old Soda keeps running through my mind and I was so wrong to be angry at him earlier. He's the victim in all of it. _And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten..._ I put my head in my hands and feel the weight that Soda's carried alone since the day he was drafted. I go inside to check on the brother that never deserved any of this.

I knock on his door but he won't answer. I don't bother to knock again. I grab the bobby pin that Mom put above every one of our doors and pick the lock easily. He's a sweaty mess, and his shirt is even more ripped than it was from the fight earlier. His chest is marked with scratches and fingerprint bruises. I know Pony didn't cause these. Has he done it to himself? I walk over, thinking he's asleep or more likely passed out, but I'm startled when his head turns to face me. And it doesn't matter that he's tripping on God knows what, I can still see him. He's trapped right there in his eyes and begging for my help. I bend down and start wiping away the wet hair that's matted to his forehead.

"Please kill me Darry," is all he whispers over and over and I know it's the drugs talking, but the depth of sadness that flows through me couldn't possibly be measured.

"Shh," I manage as tenderly as I can. "Ain't lettin' nobody kill you. I'm gonna fix you."

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton, Scarborough Fair/Canticle by Simon and Garfunkel


	9. Chapter 9

**THE TRIP**

PART IX

 _I'm sitting next to Dad at our table, filled with a peace that's as warm as the kitchen around me. Mom, surrounded by a golden aura seems to float to the oven, its ringing timer commanding her to pull out her pot roast. I can't see her face and I want to, cause it's been so long, but she remains bent over, her back to me, fooling with the meat thermometer. Another harsh ring; I wonder why my alarm has even been set and I look around for Dad who suddenly isn't there. "Mom?" but my call lacks voice and she still won't turn. A passing train rattles the windows and the entire house, my chair quakes violently and I'm shaking right along with it..._

I'm being shaken by my shoulders and I feel my brain rising up, breaking through cobwebs to consciousness, realizing it's a dream but wondering where in the world I am, if not the kitchen. In the dark, through squinting eyes, nothing around me is recognizable, but it dawns on me when I finally hear an urgent, but familiar voice. "Ponyboy wake up," Steve says as roughly as he's shaking my shoulders. "That was Darry on the phone. He can't control Soda, he needs us to come help. C'mon just grab your shoes and put'em on in the car."

The next thing I know I'm racing after Steve down his duplex stairs and through the parking lot, not even caring about the leftover dirty rain puddles as I plow through them with bare feet. We hop into his car and take off down the road, the asphalt shiny from the lights reflecting off the wet surfaces, and the clock reads ten till four when I wipe at my wet, grimy soles with my hand before I put on each shoe. I blink my eyes awake and my stomach feels hollow and nauseous and knotted and I'm thinking this has to be a dream. Surely things can't keep getting worse.

"What all did he say?" I question Steve nervously, not sure I'm ready to really know.

Steve, wearing an army t-shirt and jeans he didn't have time to button, keeps his eyes dead ahead as he rakes a hand through his short hair, and I can tell he's as rattled as I am. "I don't know, just that Soda took somethin' strong and he's out of his damn mind." I'm reminded of Soda's winter arrest and wonder if he's on that angel dust again. "Darry says he's gone all paranoid and violent and," Steve pauses and shakes his head, "he physically can't take him on alone I guess." The devil may as well have reached through the bottom of this car and punched me right in the gut.

The closer we get to my house the more I silently yell at myself to toughen up and get ready to see my brother in this crazed state. I wasn't here to witness the cops wrestling him on an icy downtown sidewalk and cuffing him like some wild animal while he fought back with the strength of a mad man. I'd been so thankful it was Two-Bit and Darry, not me. I just arrived for the aftermath, which was ugly enough. But it looks like I'm about to see my brother's drugged out dangerous side firsthand.

As soon as we pull up I can see Darry already standing on the porch waiting, his arms wrapped around a struggling Soda, their forms make silhouettes backlit by glowing windows, adding to the dreamlike feel. Steve leaves the car on and hops out while I'm left scrambling for the door handle. I hear Darry's firm but calm voice instructing, "Grab this side Steve," and then to me he yells, "Pony, we'll hold him in back, you gotta drive us to the hospital man," as he's already wrangling our brother down the porch steps. Darry's given up. We need professionals. It's beyond us now.

I slide across the seats and over the center console to take the wheel, my adrenaline now pumping through my veins, and they drag Soda into the backseat like he's a feral cat not wanting to go into the bathwater, and as soon as Steve yells, "Gun it Pony," my foot hits the gas pedal to the floor before Darry can even close the door, and I'm sure I've left tire marks as we tear off into the darkest hour of the morning.

Thank God nobody's out on the streets cause I run through most stop signs and even a red light or two, my eyes darting around for cops or milk trucks or some innocent paper boy aiming the bad news at sleepy porches. My seat gets bumped and jostled as they pin Soda down to the floor board behind me, and have the advantage of keeping him contained to that small space below, while they put their weight on him from above. Soda hasn't said anything. Just makes noises and forms sounds that aren't words. But to me, he seems more panicked than violent. Steve repeats, "C'mon quit fightin' us Soda," but I can tell Soda's warring against his hallucinations and not against us.

Darry's voice is raspy as he gives us some idea of their night and it's obvious he's been tangling with Soda for a good while. He looks and sounds exhausted. "First he was tearin' at himself and then he started seein' shit and it just got worse and worse." I don't think he can believe this situation either, even as he describes it.

I've slipped into a strange calm; my nerves are steadier, my senses heightened and my reflexes are sharp as I skillfully race Steve's car across Tulsa towards the hospital, and I could swear I feel my parents watching us, all three of their sons blowing through the very intersection that took them from us.

Hillcrest Hospital stands ahead in the distance, the lighthouse in our storm, and I take the last mile even faster when I begin to hear what sounds like Soda convulsing. "Make sure his air waves are open, so he doesn't choke on his vomit," I bark at the back and wonder where that even came from. I reach behind my seat and don't know what part of Soda I happen to be patting and repeat "Hang on, hang on."

Brakes screech when I stop us right in front of the emergency room entrance, and I run ahead of the guys for help. Everyone here seems pretty undaunted by my display of wild panic, that my brother could possibly be OD'ing in front of my very eyes, but I guess they see it all the time. I'm relieved though when two bigger guys rush to the car to help Darry and Steve guide Soda who isn't convulsing like I thought, but still belligerent and looking like he stepped out of an insane asylum. His shirt's gone, revealing bloody marks and bruises lining up his chest and I step out of the way of the gurney they're rolling over and wonder how we'll convince Soda to lie on it.

Suddenly a doctor starts asking me what he took. And since I'm not really that sure I start sounding off a list of things I've known Soda to be on, just to cover all our bases. Like me, this Dr. Lopez thinks he's on a bad PCP reaction judging by his behavior and I nod in agreement. They've forced Soda to lie down and he's struggling against everyone, and Lopez says, "We'll be restraining him until he's more manageable," and while Darry looks up repulsed, I go on and say with force, "Absolutely, yes strap him down," and even help the nurses and orderlies get his wrists into position. "Please hurry, give him the shot, knock him out," I plead for them to move faster. _Save him from himself._

I feel a relief sweep through me when I watch the needle press into Soda's arm and then feel his muscles under my hold starting to finally unclench. Suddenly he tries to focus on my face, his eyebrows set to pain and sadness, and he whimpers my name, "Ponyboy" and his eyelids flutter. He's not out cold though, and I hope whatever's in the IV they're hooking him up to will give him some kind of escape. He slowly rolls his head from side to side and his hands limply rest in the cuffs as they're taking him through double doors and out of sight.

I don't know if any of us hear what this nurse keeps saying. Something about a psych ward. I look around and only hear the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and feel like my head is under water. Darry's hands are grabbing the top of his head and his eyes are wide open in shock watching Soda being rolled away from us, and Steve's breathing heavy and shaking his head, his pants still undone. I think we're all three lost in the trauma of it, and we don't even think to sit down, we just stand in the middle of the lobby lost, dumbfounded, waiting for direction.

The nurse comes back to fill out more of Soda's information that Darry easily recites off for her. His birthday, his blood type, and I think back to his dog tags that list all these facts. They're probably still sitting on the bathroom sink where I laid them before I took a shower yesterday, when Soda kept staring at them. "He's Catholic," I announce out of nowhere, remembering that's stated right at the bottom, sitting just below O NEG. Everyone turns to face me like I'm nuts and then swiftly they move on, but I think it's an important piece of Soda's bio, if he made it a point that the Army knew to give him Last Rites should he reach his end. My heart is being squeezed all of a sudden at the thought.

Dr. Lopez comes back after awhile and now we're finally out of shock enough to comprehend a little more. "Your brother's resting comfortably," he tells us, but we all know what the truth is. He's up on the sixth floor with all the psychos and lunatics, drugged and tied up into submission. But hell, what else can they do? "We have strict guidelines we have to follow when someone is placed in our care unwillingly. He'll be under our surveillance for twenty-four hours but you'll be given a case worker that'll contact you later today to give reports of his progress."

"Wait, we can't see him?" Darry asks, but I figured as much.

"Not in the ward he's in Mr. Curtis," Dr. Lopez respectfully addresses Darry and has him sign some documents. "We're going to give him lots of fluids and keep him monitored and safe while the drugs exit his system, but after, he'll be needing recovery care in a rehabilitation facility if you want him off them for good. Now...in addition to PCP, I've been told he's been on some benzodiazepines for awhile." I look down at my feet, feeling a little guilty for telling this guy all of Soda's drug history, but someone had to. "Habitual users have a hard time coming off Benzos and there can be a lot of withdrawal symptoms associated with cessation. But Sodapop's a Vet?"

We all answer "Yes sir," and I'm guessing he must have noticed Soda's army tattoo.

"Your case worker can put you in touch with the VA then. They offer free treatment programs for troubled veterans." And with that Dr. Lopez is gone.

"Troubled Veterans," Darry repeats, shaking his head and breathing a quick sharp breath out his nose, "that's an understatement." And we all stand up to go, feeling torn between home and not wanting to leave Soda behind.

Steve gives us both an encouraging pat to the shoulders as we stumble for the car that still sits unlocked where we'd left it. "You did good by him y'all. It had to be done."

* * *

This sure isn't a date, I'm certain of that. Nobody calls at nine in the morning to ask you to lunch in three hours if they have some romantic notion. He's lucky my dad was already at work when his phone call rang through the empty house. But I could tell by his voice he's got no kind of interest. I'm gonna kill Soda for making him call me. So why did I say sure I'll meet you? Why did I jump in the shower and search frantically for something cute to wear? Why did I go so far as to call in sick to work? Cause he's polite. And if I'm remembering him right from last fall, he's pretty good looking too. Might even say bordering hot, but hard to tell, since last time I saw him he was in a panic over tripping out.

And the biggest reason why I'm waiting in this greasy diner with butterflies dancing around my stomach? He's Sodapop Curtis's brother.

I got here early to beat the lunch crowd and snag us a booth. I don't want to have to sit up at the counter with Ponyboy side by side, all awkward. But my plan wasn't necessary since this place doesn't look to be the go-to spot for lunch. Only a few customers enter now and then, order their usual and read the paper. I look up each time the door disturbs the bell that hangs above it, and then go back to studying the sticky menu or organizing all the sugar packets. And wait.

"Hey Patty, I'm not late am I? Sorry if I made you wait." I about jump out of my cold-chill skin cause there he is, standing right beside the table and I didn't see him come in. I guess he was hidden behind the last noisy group that just arrived, fussing over chairs and pushing tables together.

"Hey Ponyboy," I say a little too excitedly and then work to rein it in. "No, you're right on time." I take his hand he offers and though I'm more of a hugger, I don't slide out of the booth to greet him more warmly, just let him give me a gentle squeeze with his fingers he's wrapped over mine and I look up into his face. He's still got the crooked endearing smile, the striking green eyes, and the same dimple as his big brother. As he takes a seat across from me, I notice his lashes are as thick as Soda's and I've made my final decision. He's hot.

He's really cute starting up the small talk, but he doesn't seem nervous at all and neither am I. Asks me about my summer and I tell him I just graduated and I'm working as a cashier down at the Winn-Dixie over by the Admiral. "You gonna start up college in the fall?" he asks like he might genuinely be interested in my journey and I pause and watch him sip on his straw, his eyes looking up at me, before I answer.

"No, my Dad can only afford for my brother to go. He's banking on me and my sisters to either get married or learn to type," and I hope my little laugh after doesn't seem too bitter or worse, maniacal.

He nods his understanding and looks sorry, but I don't want him to be so I tell him my real plans. "It's okay though. I'm gonna save up enough money for my own car and take off for San Francisco, see America along the way."

Pony smiles and says, "I remember you saying that. You wanna find yourself right? Soda told me you still hadn't given up on taking him with you," and his face changes just a smidge, but I see it nonetheless.

And suddenly I know this lunch is about Soda. And my stomach gets tight. "What's up with Soda these days? He's been off the radar it seems." I'm remembering his strange behavior towards me a couple of weeks ago outside school.

Pony clears his throat and sits up a little bit, places his used napkin on his empty plate and gives it all to me as I'd expected from someone like him. Straight.

"Well ya see, that's the reason I called you Patty. Soda got a little too caught up in the drug scene and he's been trying to get clean." Suddenly I feel worried that Pony thinks I'm some druggie who's the reason for his brother's downfall. I let him go on. "He's doing a lot better though. But he's gonna be comin' home soon and my brother Darry doesn't want him to fall back with the same kinda people." Now my heart is racing, understanding how they see me. They don't want me anywhere around their brother. They've got me all wrong. But before I can defend myself, Pony says, "We need to find that girl Soda's been seein'. Gloria? Do you know where she lives, where we might be able to find her? Darry's been wantin' to pay her a visit."

I let out a breath I didn't know was trapped inside me and swallow hard. Thank God this is about Glory. "I don't know where she lives," and Pony's looking at me funny. I think he can tell I got flustered. "But I do know she works afternoon shifts at the Blue Moon bar."

Pony's a gentleman. He got what he came here for but he makes no attempt to rush the rest of our lunch. He's a great conversationalist, but I find myself thinking of Soda most of the time and he's being distracted by the loud obnoxious behavior of the group that pulled three tables into one. Sounds like they're sounding off about the war but I hardly pay attention. Pony takes care of both our tabs and leads me out, holding the door open, but he looks intensely at me and touches my arm when we're out on the sidewalk. "Patty, would you mind waiting right here?" I nod, confused.

He turns back into the diner and I watch him through the windows. He walks right up to the mouthy group and he says something to the one who'd been the loudest. I suck in my breath when I see Pony reach down and roughly grab him by his shirt, jerk him up and get in his face, then push him down hard back into his chair. I think my mouth is hanging open along with the other patrons when he returns outside like nothing's wrong. "Here, grabbed us some peppermints," he says in a lazy drawl and he hands me the red and white striped candy. I remember to close my mouth.

"Well thanks for meeting me here, I had a real good time." And I'm realizing Ponyboy Curtis is almost as interesting as his brother, and that's a pretty tall benchmark. Suddenly I find myself wanting him to think highly of me.

"Pony, I want you to know I'm really not in the drug scene. I hung out at the farm cause my brother lets me tag along everywhere. I've only tripped acid once, and it was with Soda and he didn't want me to. But I did and he took care of me all night. I never touched the stuff since."

Feeling like a nerd after unneccesarily professing my innocence to a boy I hardly know, Pony kinda chuckles and says, "That's good to know I guess." I feel myself blushing dammit.

"When does Soda get home? Maybe I could come see him." Hope is laced all throughout these words of mine.

And Pony can't realize the knife he drags through me when he shrugs and answers, "Not so sure if he's up for visitors these days." I hide my hurt and thank Pony for buying my lunch.

"See ya 'round Pattycake," Pony uses Soda's nickname for me and I watch him walk away down the sidewalk.

I throw my mint in the trash can and take the long walk back to my dull life. I must've been crazy thinking I could ever be with someone like a Sodapop Curtis. I was just some goofy school kid he took under his wing cause he probably felt sorry for me. He's just a crush anyway. I try to ease myself into the harsh and painful reality I'm finally having to accept, but knew all along. I'm not anywhere near his league.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	10. Chapter 10

**THE TRIP**

PART X

We pull in and park under the "chow wagon" awning at Soda's favorite childhood burger joint, now looking like a rundown ghost relic from the fifties that hasn't yet been informed the seventies have arrived and elbowed them right into obsolete.

Darry squints at the menu and starts ordering before the girl can even finish the standard "Howdy partner, how can I help you?"

"I'll take an order of fries, um...make that two fries and then I need a Bacon Bronco thing, whatever the hell that's called..."

"Without the onions but extra sauce," I say in a loud and forceful whisper, tapping Darry's forearm that rests on his steering wheel, while once again he botches up our whole order at Lasso's. "Soda likes the Rodeo sauce," I'm reminding my big brother, who's always been the worst fast food orderer known to man.

"Oh," he says flustered. "Wait, add extra onions, hold the sauce on that Bronco." He's pointing his finger at the speaker as if the girl inside can see him.

"No," I groan with annoyance and proceed to lean my entire body across him, ignoring his rolling eyes as I stick my head out his window and try and clear up this mess like always. "Ma'am? Sorry, take away the onions and keep the sauce, make that extra Rodeo sauce please...ma'am," I add so they won't spit in our food and Darry and I are both shaking our heads as we wait, and I wonder what in the world our cowgirl carhop's fixing to deliver. Putting Darry in charge of a food order can make my stress level climb through the roof, but today I just focus on trying to at least get Soda's sandwich right, cause we're finally getting to visit him at the treatment center after three whole weeks, and the only thing he requested we bring him was a "big ole' messy Cheesy Bacon Buckin Bronco Burger."

As Darry cuts us across three lanes of traffic and takes a sharp left towards the turnpike, I'm thankful he thought to order extra french fries, since we're both unable to resist reaching in the bag and grabbing handfuls. "These need salt," he says through a mouthful and motions for me to make that happen for him. I reach into his glove compartment of all kinds of condiments, napkins and extra straws we've collected over time, pull out some salt packets and get to work. "Perfect," he nods approvingly and I'm sure like me, Darry appreciates all the warm memories of youth these greasy golden fries manage to evoke.

We're nearing the facility and I roll up the Lasso's bag tighter, trying to keep the burger warm for Soda, trying to keep my nerves at bay, wondering why I would even feel nervous to be around my favorite person in the whole world. But I don't know what to expect. I haven't really talked to him since our fight when I called him such ugly names I didn't mean. Or maybe I really did. My chest aches every time I go over that night in my mind.

Darry was the one to collect him from the hospital after his release and immediately check him into this place, and since that very first day he sent word through his assigned therapist that he didn't want any visitors. Not even us. Darry's first inclination was to fight it of course, and I too felt a little sting of insult, but once Soda's case manager explained it's normal to feel physically sick with withdrawal symptoms in these early stages, I could understand why he wouldn't want us to see him that way.

I'd imagined this place to be a lot nicer, so I'm disappointed when we walk into an institutional-like lobby, the barred windows and doors behind the front desk looking like a prison. But I guess that's all the VA can offer, and I can only hope it's working to make Soda better, despite the cold atmosphere and hospital smells. Darry's his usual assertive self when he doesn't ask, but tells the front desk guard we're going to visit our brother right now and we need his room number.

We both notice the US Navy anchor tattoo on his arm when this surly guy grabs a clipboard and looks up with raised eyebrows, giving a look that manages to put Darry in his place. "Sir, you'll sit in the waiting room and when you get clearance, you'll meet your brother in the visiting area in the cafeteria."

Darry immediately changes his tune and respectfully says, "Yes sir," and leads us over to the row of uncomfortable chairs, but still chooses to stand. I sit next to the table of pamphlets and flip through them, looking at all the pictures of actor soldiers playing their parts, faking their smiles and hugging their beautiful, happy families, free from addiction and haunted flashbacks thanks to all the methods of therapies being offered. I wonder what all goes on in this place. It's hard to imagine Soda sitting around in a group of men and talking about his issues, or lying down on a couch and spilling his guts out, or staring at a swinging pendulum and being hypnotized. I don't even want to think about shock therapy. Surely to God he hasn't dealt with that.

I'm pulled from my wild and worried thoughts when the Navy guy calls out like we're in boot camp. "Curtis, you can follow me now." We scramble behind him through the mechanical doors and down a short hallway into a cafeteria that looks like a true mess hall and smells like cooked carrots and bleach. Navy seats us in one of the round tables off to the side and tells us Sodapop will be in soon.

Some tables are filled with men playing cards, smoking, laughing. A few in wheelchairs missing limbs, most bearded with long hair like Soda used to be. All of them wearing the same flannel pajama pants and t shirts, as if getting dressed for the day is the least important thing in the world. And I guess in the scheme of things, it really is. A few of the tables are occupied by families obviously visiting loved ones, like we are. I can't help but stare at the violence breaking out when a group of orderlies forcefully escort a man away through the doors, the one who's been in the corner loudly arguing with nobody, only the air, with a disturbing kind of conviction.

"There he is," Darry says, using the same words and the same emotional tone when he spotted Soda in the bus station over a year ago. And I follow the direction of Darry's eyes and look towards the double doors and see our Soda, dressed in the appointed, more relaxed uniforms of his fellow soldiers here, his hair grown a bit more unruly and his beard trying to make a comeback. When he spots us he hurries over, moving chairs out of his way and we stand up, and so do the tiny hairs on my skin. And all the nerves that plagued me before suddenly leave my body when I see the brilliant smile that takes up his whole face. Darry reaches him first and I watch them share their moment, unaware of what they're saying to each other, and then it's my turn. And for a millisecond, my nerves try to fire up once more when his eyes, clearer than I remember them ever being, turn to me.

"C'mere Pony," and I lean for his embrace while he says, "you little motherfuckin' pussy." He brings up the vicious names I hurled at him, but his grin and twinkling eyes show that it's all in teasing, and he's addressing the elephant before it has a chance to trample us, just like he always does.

I still flench at the memory and he feels it. "Soda I'm so sorry," I apologize in a whisper, my chin on his shoulder.

"Pony," he says, sounding both firm and warm at the same time, "you were exactly right. I _was_ a motherfucker and a drug addict pussy. You've always been a truth teller and I love you for it, man. I'm just so so sorry for how I treated you. I was such an ass." And as I did when I was a little boy, I feel that clean slate feeling that Soda's always been able to provide me. That complete euphoria of total forgiveness.

I hand him the Lasso bag, now marked all over with grease spots, and he pulls out the little tan packets from the bottom. "Y'all even got me extra Rodeo Sauce," he says like we're the most thoughtful people in the world and Darry gives me credit for remembering.

"Wait, it ain't Friday is it?" he makes sure before he tears into the thick burger and it's pretty gross watching him eat it, sauce falling out of the buns and onto the styrofoam container. He stands up and heads for the cart of cafeteria necessities, walking like surgeons do with arms up at the elbows, and comes back with a thousand napkins. "Mmmm mmmm," he says with satisfaction after he's finished, and Darry grabs a piece of bacon left behind but I notice Soda can't even finish the sandwich he used to wolf down in one minute. He's definitely dropped some weight.

Darry asks him how it is here and Soda says it was horrible at first but it's easing up now. He seems to be open and honest with us, and that's a relief. "It was a hard few weeks but I finally feel like I'm comin' back to myself ya know?"

He's fiddling with the paper ID bracelet on his wrist and Darry questions the white bandages taped around his other. Soda shakes his head and quickly brings up another topic. I guess he isn't as open about some things and I wonder what happened there.

We start talking about normal stuff, fill him in on things like my crazy new job of caddying at the country club, funny little moments he's missed while he's been away and I remind him he only has two more weeks to go. His face switches to serious. "I know, and it kinda scares me."

Darry leans forward and assures him we're gonna help him manage. "Soda, it's a battle, I know. We're just gonna take it day by day." And I think he must've read his own pamphlet or two. Soda nods, but I see the worry etched around his eyes.

"Dr. Fran, she's my one-on-one therapist, thinks it'd be a good idea if you, um, sat in on a few sessions during my last week Darry," he says and I feel a little left out. "She wants to put us on some plan, I don't know, and I guess meet the guy that's kinda been in charge of my life," he shrugs and chuckles a little. I guess that makes sense and I see why Darry would be who this lady wants to talk to. He's the biggest influencer in both our lives.

"You just let me know the times and I'm there," and I can tell Darry's happy to be getting involved. I knew he wasn't liking the feeling of having zero control over these last few weeks, and this is his opportunity to waltz in and take some reins back.

"Steve and Two-Bit are chompin' at the bit to get in here Soda. Are you up for other visitors?" I ask him as he goes through the duffel bag of stuff we brought him from home.

"Hell yes," he quickly answers. "I started talkin' to the walls about three days ago," he says, and although he's probably not even joking, I notice again how clear he is. Sure he looks disheveled and exhausted from the struggle, but his eyes are no longer foggy, he's moving and talking with all the mannerisms I didn't know were missing until they showed up to claim their rightful place. He's back.

Some guy that looks more like a football coach than a doctor walks over and interrupts us. He asks for the duffel bag and says it'll be in Soda's room once he searches through it. I guess Soda's used to giving up his stuff cause it doesn't faze him as he hands it over willingly. "Oh hey Joe, think I could have a cigarette while I'm in here?" I glance at Darry during this interaction and wonder if he feels as weird as I do. Big Joe writes something down and doles out a single Marlboro from one of the packs we brought. Even lights it for him, then walks away with Soda's belongings, but pockets the cigarettes.

Soda leans back and inhales deeply, like he hasn't in a long time. "You in here to try and quit smokin' too?" I ask with annoyance at Joe for treating Soda like some little kid or some common criminal. "Why's he taking your smokes away? Ain't you got enough to deal with in here without tryin' to cut back on your smokes?"

Soda looks at me out of the side of his eyes while his head turns to aim his smoky exhale in the opposite direction and he starts his smile before he's done blowing it all out. "Ponyboy Curtis, always Mr. Defensive," and he's right. I'm much more defensive when it comes to other people, more than myself. The cause of most of my past altercations have always been over defending someone else.

"Naw I ain't tryin' to quit," he goes on to explain. "Let's just say I had an episode the other night and they gotta watch me with my cigarettes now," and I'm alarmed when I see him very quickly glance down at his bandaged wrist. And just like that, the road I thought we made it down just got a whole lot longer.

* * *

What the hell kind of a place is this? I look at the crumpled address I scribbled. Pony's little friend did say the Blue Moon didn't she? Windows blacked out, entrance in a back alley, cats clawing through dumpsters stuffed to the gills with garbage bags. An electric sign blinks open so I go on in, almost miss the first step of a steep stairway leading to pitch black, but music leads me down into the dark nothing until I end up in what looks to be a pretty normal bar, complete with beer signs, quite a few men bellied up to an endless bar and a couple of rough looking waitresses in no kind of uniform, just wearing what they feel like and it's not very much.

I take a seat at the end of the bar and wait for service, watch the bartender's backside as she fills a pitcher, her tight jeans so low on her hips it oughta be illegal. I can see she's giving off hotness all the way over here and I'm pretty sure she's gotta be the one. Pony gave me a description of who I'm looking for, and said "She's really good lookin' Darry. Just you wait."

She delivers the pitcher to the table behind me and I hear her talking to them like she's one of the guys, about the latest scores, teasing one of them for wearing a Royals hat, getting them riled up about their shitty season. And they love it. And the more they love it, the more tips she's bound to earn. She knows how to play the game.

She's back behind the bar and notices me, smiles and says, "Sorry I didn't see you come in, be right with ya," seeming friendly enough as she writes on her tab and starts walking my way, and Pony was right, cause this girl's something, a bombshell type who stepped right out of the centerfold. For a split second I forget the reason why I'm here and give Soda a mental high five for tagging this one.

A harried voice from another waitress calls out from across the room, "Sorry Glory, I'll take him," and unfortunately starts hurrying back to her post but Glory's quick to stop her.

I stop breathing a second when she sizes me up with those eyes and claims me right out loud, "Don't worry 'bout it Rose. This one's on me." Good Lord what the hell am I up against here?

She brings that body on over and she's looking like all kinds of trouble. But I'm Darry fucking Curtis. I make myself appear untouchable and get ready to take the control right out from under her. "Hey there, I'm Glory," and she smiles as big as Soda, like she's used to getting what she wants.

"Glory, I'm thirsty. I'll take a Budweiser." And her eyebrows shoot up, not used to someone that ain't drooling all over her I guess, and my eyebrows follow suit, matching hers, but my smile breaks out cause I can already tell this is gonna be too easy.

"Sure thing hun, wanna glass?" and she's off to the cooler, but still looking me up and down, starting to get a little suspicious of why I'm here.

"Bottle's fine," I answer and she sets it in front of me and leans forward on both hands, and I notice her belly button where her white flowy shirt's riding up, and the necklace that's resting right in her cleavage which is just about at perfect eye level. There's no way she's not sexy and there's no way I'll ever let her know I think so.

I get to it. "Glory or Gloria?" I ask her.

"Glory to my friends. You can call me Glory," and I can tell she thinks her tip just went up a notch.

"Gloria," I start but pause to take a swig, "I think you and I have a friend in common."

I watch her whole body change, feeling nervous probably that I'm some cop. "Oh yeah?" she questions, her honeyed tone giving way to a tough edge. She starts busying herself wiping down the bar, ready to not give up any information.

"I'm Darry Curtis, Sodapop's older brother," and she freezes and her eyes grow wide and she looks at me really hard now.

"You're kiddin' me? Y'all don't look much alike. Damn, but every last one handsome. What the hell's in that water y'all grew up drinkin'?" She's shaking her head, walking over again, even runs her hand over mine. "Good to meetcha Darry." But her flattery doesn't fool me.

I pull my hand out from under hers and start pulling out my wallet cause I'm not wanting this to take any more of my time. "Soda's all cleaned up now ya know."

She doesn't miss a beat so I can tell she's not out of the loop like I'd hoped. "Yeah, I'm real proud of him." And I might just believe her.

I can't afford to be nice, so I get ugly. "We don't need you creepin' back around messin' this all up for him, ya hear me?" Neither of us are smiling now. Her jaw is as clenched and her stare is as intimidating as mine.

"I think you'd best leave that decision up to your little brother. Surely you know him better than that, Darry. He's one that won't ever be controlled. Now why are you wastin' your precious time and energy tryin'? You're just used to spinnin' them wheels ain'tcha?"

"I'm used to people doin' what I ask, and I think you're gonna do what I'm tellin' you to do."

She lets out a soft laugh that grows louder and she throws her head back. It's the kind of laugh you can't help joining and even I chuckle with her, in this tense moment. She wipes her eyes and finally stops laughing. "Oh God Darry, or what? You gonna spank me? I assure you it wouldn't be the first time I've been spanked at the hands of a Curtis."

I throw down a five and smile my threat. "Stay out of our lives Gloria, or I'll make yours miserable." I get up to go and watch Glory take the five and smile up at me, slowly tucking the bill down between her tits into her bra.

"I hate that we didn't get off on the right foot Darry," she says with fake spun sugar. "I'm afraid you got the wrong idea about the kind of girl I am."

"I know exactly what type of girl you are Gloria," and I start walking out.

"Good," she calls behind me. "Then you know I always take what's mine. And you can count on seeing me again, Darry Curtis."

* * *

We're just finishing up our final therapy meeting. And it's the night before Soda's release back to the real world. But he seems a little off tonight, all throughout our hour session his mind was somewhere else. And I chalk it up to nerves over his next step of having to keep clean outside of this protected environment. I walk him back to his room and tell him I'll help get him packed up a little. His hovel is a tiny depressing cinder blocked closet and the two of us are too big to move around in here comfortably. I start folding his clothes and putting them into bags.

"Here I brought you these clothes for you to wear out tomorrow."

"Thanks Darry," he says while he's taking down the pictures he has taped to his walls and I laugh when he spends extra time and care gently taking down all the Penthouse pets that got him through these five weeks.

"Don't forget, that's your pillow," I remind him and I'm lost in thought trying to make all this fit into one bag. I've been wrestling this past week with what all to reveal about Soda's history to Dr. Fran and well, to Soda. I hope I haven't destroyed his recovery somehow by not telling, hope I've made the right decision to keep my mother's own addiction issues hidden, that Soda comes by it honest actually, and he doesn't even know it. Or does he sometimes remember and wonder if it was a dream? It would have to seem that way to him, having memories of our sweet mother hurling couch cushions across the room when we wrecked the den, or her words slurring every now and then in a way that made my stomach sick, way way back in our beginning, or was he too young to notice? Does he remember Dad dragging her down the hall kicking and screaming one night? Does he remember running for Dad's help when he came in one day to find her dragging me... _me_ down that very hall, slapping me all over? I'm too scared to bring it up.

"Alright," I breathe, "looks manageable now. What time am I picking you up?"

"I already got a ride Dar," he says, jumpy and full of all the subtle but familiar tics that've always let me know he's holding something in.

"Huh? Did Steve take off tomorrow? He didn't have to do that." I'm confused, why wouldn't Pony and I be the ones to pick him up and bring him home?

"Glory's picking me up," he mumbles quickly and I pull myself off the floor and stand up right in front of him, our height difference more glaring whenever I get this close.

"Huh?" I ask harshly. "When the hell did you talk to her Sodapop?" My blood's rushed to my face and I'm already planning my next method of attack on this dirty bitch.

He backs away and sits in the wooden chair and won't look at me when he says, "She came and visited me yesterday." I've never heard him sound more tired.

I drag my hands down my face and will myself to get calm. But I can't quite make my tone be anything but rough and heavy. "Soda, you know it isn't healthy to be around her. To throw yourself right back into a toxic environment." I've gotten really good at using Dr. Fran's phrases.

Now there's all kinds of hope on Soda's face when he enthusiastically tells me, "No Darry, you don't understand. She got clean too."

I wonder how Soda can be this naive. "Bullshit, Soda. That girl's tellin' you what you wanna hear."

"No, Darry, she really is," and now he sounds so sick he's scaring me.

"Well how the hell are you gonna believe her?" I wait, and I wait, and I fucking wait and I already know what he's going to say. I hear the second hand like a ticking time bomb. And I try and gear up cause I can't seem to convince myself he's going to tell me anything else, something different. Please God, something different.

His knee is bouncing. His brown eyes drag themselves from staring at his shoes all the way up to stare at me. He takes a shaky breath, and says, "She's pregnant."

Hearing what I already knew seconds before doesn't change the effect of those words. Their devastation. My blood runs cold. And my brother has just signed his life away. It's over. I shake my head and can't find any words.

Soda launches into his speech on how it's all going to be okay, that it's all for the best, that he'll have to be good now that he's gonna be a father, and I start tuning him out when I see he's only trying to convince himself.

Suddenly my frozen blood starts churning again, and a red heat starts rushing throughout and I'm so mad at my dumbass brother I could kick his chair across the room, with him still in it.

I kick his bag instead and all those clothes I folded come flying out, and Soda follows me telling me over and over how sorry he is. I hold my hand up to make him stop talking, but he flinches like I'm about to hit him. "It's over Soda. I'm so fucking tired of fighting for you when all you do is turn around and ruin your own life. I can't even look at you right now. Don't bother coming home and begging me to help you. I'm done Soda. Done," and I slam the door, leaving him standing in the middle of the room with a look on his face that I've never ever seen before.

I don't even remember my walk down the hall or pushing the elevator buttons, I can't remember if I signed out or maybe I just told the night nurse to fuck off, that wouldn't surprise me. I'm finally coming back to myself when I end up at the ramp for Creek Turnpike and I wonder how I got here. And that's when I start really seeing Soda's face, the way it looked when I left, so destroyed and lost. And I think, what the hell am I doing?

I jerk my wheel and ignore the angry honks when I make an illegal U-turn and race back to my brother. My tires screech to a halt in the parking lot and I run in, demanding that I see him for just a second, that I'm begging them, that I know visiting hours are over but it's really important. That I'll die if I can't see him right now and the guards are starting to walk their way over and I don't care if I'm losing my mind. And it's gotta be God's grace that in that moment, I see my brother through the windows, walking with a group of patients, their backs to us, probably on their way to the weight room. I make my fist fit through the bars and bang on the windows despite the guards yelling at me to stop and surrounding me like vultures. But I got his attention. They all turn around and he can see me. Now to make him hear me.

"Soda I didn't mean it," I yell louder than I've yelled in a long time. "The door is always open. You can always come home."

As soon as I see he understands me, the moment I can see just that little exhale and the way his eyes look at me, once his lips start tugging up in the corner, I shake my shoulders to get these guards off me and say, "Okay I'm leavin', I'm out of y'alls hair now." And I walk out of that place I hope to never step foot in again.

* * *

Jeans feel weird after being in pajamas so long. I sign my papers and say goodbye to the staff, to the guys I've gotten close to, to Dr. Fran who makes me promise I'm going to keep up with my meetings. And I will.

"Do you have a ride?" Joe asks me, and I tell him it's waiting outside.

I feel nervous and restless and sick all at once, but the bright sting of the sun works to zap me out of all my feelings. I squint against it and shield my eyes, and the white hot light in front of me suddenly morphs into a car, and I can make out the girl honking in the driver's seat, asking "Hey baby, you wanna ride?" and my stomach flips when I see her, through clear and sober eyes, in the harsh light of day. I don't know if I'm turned on more by her hotness or the fact she's now carrying my baby. And as my feet are dragging me to this car I'm not sure if I'm headed for heaven or hell. But does it really matter? When it comes to Gloria, they're kinda one and the same.

I slide in and can't control my hands all over her. It's been so long and I'm so hungry. I snake my way under her skirt and smile when I find she's not wearing panties, and thank God she's still ready to play, even though she's pregnant. I've never met someone who's so good at being bad. I break away and keep my hands to myself so she can drive us away from here, and I use my teeth to rip off my id bracelet. "Take me to your place."

"Our place," she corrects me.

"Our place." I whisper, and stare out the windshield at a world I suddenly don't recognize.

* * *

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	11. Chapter 11

_Warning: mention of rape towards the end._

 **THE TRIP**

PART XI

"Sodapop, tell me how you're feeling these days," Dr. Fran's voice is so warm and free of judgment I feel like I'm floating on it. I guess she can tell I'm struggling, but doesn't even mention the last two group sessions I skipped.

"I haven't used if that's what you mean," I tell her, finally looking her in the eye, hoping to see some look from her like she's proud of me. "Not even once," I add to cement the pathetic victory, that I've lived two weeks in the real world and haven't had a hit. And I suddenly realize I'm like some little kid who needs that praise. And her smile soothes something broken inside me.

My eyes break our hold and I look outside at a rain so soft it barely has strength to fling itself against the window. My knee starts bouncing and I wonder what's the point of her patting my back? It's fucked up really, when I know deep down I would've used if I'd found what I was looking for in Glory's dresser that night, but she'd already emptied out the stash. Smart girl. I didn't wake her and neither did the slam of the drawer. I didn't tell Glory how I went searching cause I was itching so bad, or the way my blood boiled when I found them gone. All of it wasted. She had no clue how I shook, how I stood over her as she slept peacefully, how I imagined dragging her out of that bed and knocking my rage all over her, against her. How I was in a spiraling panic when I called Steve to talk me down.

"That's wonderful, Soda. Have you had any cravings? Why don't you tell me about those moments? What are they like for you?" Dr. Fran readies her pen, waiting for me to spill it, as if she's sure beyond doubt I'll never rid myself of this problem, my _disease_ she likes to call it.

I inhale through my nose and open my mouth to slowly let out a shaky breath, keep my eyes on the dismal day and let my mouth form a semblance of a smile. "I'm doing great. Don't even smoke no more." I glance down at the healing burns on my wrist and wonder why I just let out a short, soft laugh.

"It would be very normal to have cravings Soda. This is the place you can open up and talk about them." And I don't see a point in negativity like this. My eyes narrow.

"Shouldn't we focus on the positive?" I ask, maybe a little harsher than I'd meant to.

Her smile still holds all her warmth and she nods her head. "Our conversations can help give you strength for those weak moments that everybody faces. Those moments are nothing to be ashamed of."

I don't intend to say much else. I'm slumped forward now, my elbows on my knees, my head cradled by my hands. Don't even bother looking up when I speak. "I'm doing great," I repeat, only this time more quietly, without any trace of belief.

She lets me sit there for a bit, sink and settle into all my denial, before she adds "These sessions can only work if you make yourself open up. I need you to get honest with me Soda." Each of her words feel like little pinches on my skin.

I say nothing and our minutes stretch. I'm bridged to her and to reality only by the sounds of the ticking clock and the lazy rain that lightly pelts on the panes without any kind of pattern. I want to follow her rules. I will myself to open up to her. I imagine myself standing up in front of her desk and ripping my shirt apart. Dropping all my clothes at my feet. Stripped naked. Letting her see me. Letting her examine my skin up close with glasses that magnify, to find all the ugly marks where sickness screams just beneath the surface. I imagine her taking a black marker and circling every damaged cell, all those that sin destroyed. My eyes are still closed tight and so am I. Nothing on Earth could get me to open them right now.

"Why don't we try talking about your current living situation," she tries a new approach, refusing to end it. "I understand you didn't go home with your brothers like you'd planned. Perhaps I should've called in your girlfriend to our sessions instead of Darry." Even with my eyes closed, I feel them roll behind my lids.

 _"Sorry, I didn't know you don't like pepperoni," she says curled up next to me on the couch._

 _There's so much in just that one statement, I think to myself as I continue to pick at my pizza. "I like 'em. But I can't eat meat. It's Friday, 'member?" I try to keep the annoyance out of my voice, since we just got married two hours ago._

 _"Well, I hope you don't expect me to follow that crazy rule," and she grabs my discarded pepperoni and pops them in her mouth._

 _"I guess I better call Darry and let him and Pony know I'm married now," I sigh and take a sip of my beer._

 _"Yeah, I should probably call my mom," but neither of us move to get up._

 _"Your mom?" I ask surprised._

 _Glory looks over and shakes her head at me like I'm an idiot. "Yeah, I have parents Soda. I didn't just appear out of thin air ya know." There's a sadness in her frustration._

 _What are we? I take a bite of the cardboard crust and say with a voice as flat as my pizza, "Gino's is much better than this."_

"She's my wife, and believe me, you'd lock us both away if she sat in with us." I straighten back up and notice there's no look of surprise on Fran's face.

"Congratulations," she says and doesn't wait for a thank you. "That's a big life adjustment for anyone." She leaves off the part _especially for a drug addict._ I don't dare fess up to her that we're having a baby. I haven't even wrapped my head around that myself, and after saying those words to Darry and living through his scary as hell reaction, I haven't dared to utter them to anyone else.

Dr. Fran leans back into her chair and looks me over, like she's not sure what to make of me. Nobody really is. "Soda I'm happy to meet with your wife and incorporate her into your treatment. Or if you'd rather, we can bring back your brother. You seem to relax more when someone's with you. You certainly were more open and receptive to the therapy."

My stomach drops thinking of Darry. All the ways I've dragged him over the coals in just the past month, not to mention the past year. "I don't think I'm Darry's favorite person right now," and even though he assured me I can always come home, I've kept my distance for his sake. To give him a break.

First week out I took a position on the line at the steel mill. And I know it hurt Darry how quickly I turned down his offer to come back and work under him again. He'd been all happy when he called me up to tell me his boss cut him another deal. Planning for his retirement, Mr. Carlson moved Darry to a partner position, and part of his pay raise now goes back to Mr. Carlson until he can buy the whole company outright, paired with taking out a loan of course. The construction company Darry's roofed for since our parents died will someday belong solely to him, and nobody deserves success more than my older brother.

But I told him no. That I wanted the benefits of a backing union; I've got a kid on the way to think about after all. No matter that Darry as my boss, Darry who has all my best interest sitting dead center in his heart, would be far better to me than any faceless union. I just couldn't say yes. I need my own way. He said he understood, acted happy about my new job, but it just felt like another wedge driven between us.

"I'm pretty sure Darry would rather sit this one out for a bit. I think I've finally pushed him past the breaking point." I can't stop my fingers from kneading my forehead. And I press in harder thinking about the talk he had behind my back with Gloria.

 _"You're no picnic to live with either Soda Curtis," she says, slamming the toilet lid down. "You know you can be as mean as a pissed off rattlesnake and I'm so sick and fucking tired of being the bad guy in everything."_

 _"You're not Gloria. I told you they invited you too." This is the fifth time I've said this and it doesn't seem to make it through her thick skull to the mind she's already set on. "His exact words were 'Come over for supper Soda. Bring Gloria too.' He's tryin' to make amends Glory. He don't wanna fight with his sister-in-law."_

 _She's finished washing her hands and unties her robe, dropping it. "If you coulda seen the way he treated me, you wouldn't set foot in that house on principle." She's already on her knees in front of me, unbuckling my belt. I end up calling to cancel on them._

I'm snatched away from my thoughts when I realize she's still talking. "I have a feeling Darry wouldn't mind coming in. To revisit some of the topics that were brought up." Her voice sounds so calming and sure and I'm still rubbing my temples and my face, shaking my head at her and to myself. "Soda, what if I told you he's already called me twice this week?" I let my hands drop into my lap and look up at her now. She quickly holds one hand up and says, "I've given him absolutely no information on you. I'm not allowed," she smiles her assurance. "But I'm able to tell _you_ he's still very invested in your recovery. He also wanted to make me aware of some of your family history. Thought it might help if I knew. And he was right." I go cold.

 _"You think drinking's a good idea for you?" Gloria asks all judgmental coming home from work. It's only my second beer but how does she know it ain't my first? Who does she think she is?_

 _"Just winding down from work hon. My problem was never with booze," I say but she ignores me._

 _I get up to break this streak. This four day stretch of absolutely no fun. Of working the second shift in a blazing inferno while Glory puts up with the grab-assing perverts she serves at the bar, and then we come home to nothing we know. Nothing in common. I'd love to lie and say we're better off now that we're sober, now that we aren't burnt, baked and stoned as fuck. Nope, cause now I don't have the drugs to blame for some of the warped shit that I get off on_. _I follow her in the kitchen and watch her putting away groceries._

 _My eyes are trained on her every move while I throw back the bottle, but the beer can't drown my aggression. "Gloria," I say her name like a threat and I feel that familiar heat coursing through my veins. She stops cause she knows that voice, slowly turns around with a bad girl's smile, and her eyes are practically begging me for the fire I'm about to unleash all over her. The lesson she never seems to learn._

"I'm in here for drugs, not drinking," I say before Dr. Fran has time to move her finger into a pointing position. I try to still my heart cause she has to hear it pounding, but she's too nice to point it out.

"I didn't say you were drinking, Soda. Are you?" She's looking at me with absolute concern. I just shake my head no, grip the arms of my chair and let my eyes drift back to the window, to a bird that's out in this messy afternoon braving the rain, gliding with black wings outstretched, and I'm floating again on Dr. Fran's voice. "Soda I want you to go back to your childhood for a minute. I'd like to know why you had that reaction just now." Her words are carried on the bird's wings and the air underneath them. "Would you like to tell me about some of your earliest memories?" I watch it take a dive, zeroed in on a meal probably, and it disappears behind the steam of an industrial smokestack. The minutes pass or are they days? I blink and I feel my eyelashes are wet. Have I been out in the rain? Was it me who was flying?

"Soda?... Sodapop?"

* * *

"Your name tag's upside down Patty." I look down to find he's not lying and it sure enough is. "You're on three." I work to right it and head to my post. Line three. One of two lines open today since Maria called in sick. Not a good thing for a Saturday. Don and I are praying to Jesus, Mary and Joseph that Jean will make it in as relief cashier. He still can't get a hold of her.

I wiggle my fingers, limber up to punch in all those sale prices. It's somewhere around hour two that I find my zen. Hardly making mistakes, smiling pleasant at everyone, asking the occasional "Did you find everything okay?"

That's about when I stare out the huge store windows, right above the Kool-Aid man display. Sodapop Curtis has parked his car right up next to the sidewalk in the no parking zone and is waltzing into my Winn Dixie and my heart just a missed a beat. Forever changed its pattern. He's looking like he used to with his beard, hair longish. Not long like it was when I first met him, but long enough. I can tell it's on his nerves cause he's wrangled it back into a rubber band, but it's way too short for a true ponytail. He always has a few sneaky strands that seem to escape, wild and misbehaving like he is.

A hundred of our conversations play back as I type in twenty cents for this customer's soup can, and I feel heat on my cheeks as I try and maintain composure. Not like the talks we had were ever anything beyond the friend zone when we sat out back of the farmhouse those nights. Sharing a smoke. Or more often a joint. He helped me survive my senior year. Told me how to see my dad as not just an asshole, but a protective and worried asshole. Gave me a lot of good advice, like he really cared. And I could listen to him talk for days on end, not only cause of that thick country running through his voice and that laid back way he's got about him, but mostly cause he looks at life in a whole different way than I'm used to and yet, the way I've always known it should be. And the night he kissed me, he apologized and swore he'd never do it again, like he'd messed up somehow. I knew then I'd have to be content to admire Soda from a backseat view. And when it comes to him, I'm lucky to have any kind of view at all.

Jean opened up line two about a half hour ago and I'm kinda hoping he'll choose her aisle. Avoid the awkward. I have no idea if he even knows Ponyboy and I met, talked about him over lunch. But he falls right into my line of course and I know that's really what I wanted as butterflies swarm my ribcage. He's four people back but I can see he's figuring out it's me. Out of the corner of my eye he's cocking his head and squinting like he does. I'm pretty sure he's in desperate need of glasses. "Well if it ain't Pattycake Campbell," and a half dozen people look in his direction. But he's so used to that.

I don't even pretend I'm just now noticing him. Why play games? I look up and smile at him, laugh just a little cause I've forgotten what he does to me. He's the most beautiful, rough-around-all-the-edges person I've ever seen. And my knees are weak, but I'm just his friend. "Soda, I'm so freakin' happy to see you," and I mean it. Happy he's out of rehab. Happy his real smile looks to be back. Happy he lived through the war. Happy he was born in this town. Happy he's in line three today with two bags of hamburger buns.

Damn these customers for expecting me to check them out. I try and keep the line moving while Soda has no problems continuing our conversation for all to hear. He asks about graduation and if I like my job here, not even caring my boss is pacing the front, listening in and watching me like a hawk. Finally it's his turn and I take his buns and give the total and he reaches in his back pocket. "We're grilllin' up some burgers tonight. Havin' a cookout for Ponyboy's birthday. You oughta stop by. I remember you askin' about him."

Now I know he has no idea about the lunch and I hate that. I don't like the feeling of going behind his back. I avoid it all and just say, "Well you tell Ponyboy I said happy birthday." I can't make myself care about the people behind him growing impatient. He hands me the money and I get chills when his fingers brush my wrist and I melt into his eyes. The lady with curlers in her hair clears her throat, trying to make us hurry. I can't stop staring. I want to tell him how good he looks. I want to ask him again to run away with me, but I already know how he feels about my childish dream.

I break from the spell when Curlers starts muttering under her breath and I move finally to put the cash in the drawer and count out change. Soda turns his attention to the complainer and I watch him work his magic. Turning everything on to charm even the most sour disposition. In a matter of seconds I watch her come undone, her hand touching her curlers as if she just might regret coming to the store like this.

I hand Soda the change and decide to go on and tell him, "You look great Soda. I'm glad you're back to the look. This is much more...you."

"Oh God Patty, don't encourage him," and Glory's shown up out of nowhere. "I'm pleading with him everyday to shave that Godforsaken mess." I watch Soda smile down at me, and I pray he can't see how red my face feels.

"Thanks Patty," he says softly, meant for my ears only. And then to Glory he says, "At least somebody gets it," but I don't miss the joking tone, the way couples do.

Gloria tries to be friendly with me, and I appreciate it actually cause I feel like such a dumbass. Here I am the check out girl, letting myself get swept away by all that is Soda. But she's a girl too. She understands. Who'd be immune to all that? I feel like I'm twelve though the way she talks to me. But that's probably how she sees me anyway. How they see me.

"C'mon Glory let's get goin'. I don't want Pattycake gettin' in trouble over us," and Soda's trying to lead her out. I hate how stunning they look together.

"Patty don't ever get married. All of a sudden these boys think they can shush you and lead you out of a store once they become a husband," and she winks at me cause she really loves the hell out of being all his. Married? Wait, what? I look to Soda but he's already out the door. "See ya 'round Pattycake," and I feel sick when she calls me that.

* * *

I find myself awake at three a.m. It's like clockwork. I lie in our bed of twisted sheets and try and piece together my latest nightmare. I miss that dog back home, the one a few streets over that just went at it all night, the one that's so annoying but when he's not there it's way too quiet. I'm thankful for the occasional siren that takes his place, starting faint and then grows to the point of deafening and just as quickly fades away. I like the intensity of it when it's right outside our window. It gets my blood moving again. I need a hit. I'll always need one.

The window's open but the air is stagnant. I remove Glory's spindly arm from where she's thrown it across my chest, get her to roll over. It's too hot and sticky for skin on skin. This apartment is the devil's oven, and I'm sweating anyway from my dream. I wait for sleep to either come save me or destroy me with the power it has for both.

Before I know it I'm on top of Gloria and she's taking me all in like I need her to, playing the part she's perfected, her body, moving with mine like it's made only for me. It's rare I'm in the moment with her like this, and I'm watching her sleepy, sexy eyes, her lips part as she breathes my name and that's exactly what I want to hear out of her, and I kiss her exposed neck, sucking it a little to mark her. I feel like I could go all night when I look back at her face.

But it's not Glory. I see instead a little freckled nose. "Soda?" she says in a voice so innocent, so seeking, and I'm watching Patty stare up at me, with that look that made me want to rescue her since the day we met. I'm suddenly so turned on I don't even question, just feel myself thrust harder, ignore her whimpers and writhing. She's getting louder with my name and I'm nearing the edge. I know I'm swept away and being way too rough. She's nothing like Glory and can't take it like she can, and why do I love that about her?

I run my hand all the way up her side, sliding up her arm that's raised above her head. My hand keeps snaking upwards and ends where I feel rope at her wrist. Her soft voice has turned to screams. Screams in Vietnamese. I freeze and fall back, look down now in horror at the village woman whose bed I shared not long ago. The one who'd been raped. Oh Jesus what have I done? My hands shake as they pull at the rope.

"No, no," I stutter and try to free her wiggling hands. But her yelling and my panic make it hard to concentrate. I fumble at knots that'll never come undone and she keeps carrying on in a frenzy of language that I don't need to understand. Cause the terror is right there in her shrieks and isn't that all I need to know? I want to vomit. I want to run straight into the mouth of hell where I belong and there's nothing I can do but beg her to be quiet. Two of my fingers tap against her lips. "Shut that fuckin' mouth," I growl through clenched teeth and I wince at my own words and crumble to the floor.

It's when I hear Glory's voice that I wake up. "Soda, what the fuck just happened?"

 **A/N:** The Outsiders by SE Hinton


	12. Chapter 12

**THE TRIP**

PART XII

He told me he'd sometimes dream about it. The war. He told me he'd attacked his little brother before in the dead of night, all because his nightmares seem so real. I don't know if I'm a little crazy myself, but that fact didn't alarm me. Never made me nervous to sleep right up next to him. I figured I'd know how to wake him if he had some kind of flashback. I'm good at waking up Soda. Real good.

Maybe it's my curious side, or the fact I've always been drawn to the warped and peculiar, but I thought it might even be interesting to see if for myself, this mad man come alive. The one I married.

But then tonight... it happened.

xXx

I'd heard all about Sodapop Curtis before I ever laid eyes on him. In fact, I'd grown sick of hearing about the guy, this returning soldier who was hanging out with some of those yahoo locals out at the farm most nights. Seemed he charmed anyone who got near enough, and dozens of stories about him had already been spun, not one of them, I'd find out later, near to truth.

But I know all about spun stories. I've starred in a lot of them myself. It happens when you look like we do. Goes with the territory.

A night like any other, I entered Pauly's and all heads turned. I'm used to that, and I won't deny I can pretty much take who I want. But I don't want just anybody.

I was this close to bailing out, telling my girls I had better things to do when the late crowd started trickling in. That's when I saw him. The air in the room seemed suddenly charged, and for the first time in a long time, so was I. In that instant, I'd somehow become one of many, a drop in a sea of people who turned for someone else, and nobody had to tell me that this was Soda Curtis.

I watched him work the room, yet he wasn't really working at all. People came to him. And just like the gathering group that seemed to light up at his presence, I was drawn as well. And intrigued not only by him, but by this new feeling of want that stirred somewhere deep inside.

It didn't take long. It wasn't some big dramatic moment. There weren't sparks or anything. It happened when his eyes swept the joint and landed on me. Then just as quickly moved right on. He certainly wasn't like those foolish boys who drool and fall all over themselves to get to the pretty girl. He knew better how to play. And that's all it took. It was by that confidence alone, that indifference of one who's used to getting, that split second when his eyes so casually threw me away, that I was hooked.

And except for a few miserable clean months last fall when he said he wanted out, we've been going at it hard ever since. Partying, fighting, fucking, and forging out this reckless existence. We're each others' downfalls, and the ride all the way to the bottom has been such a sweet, pleasurable pain. In short, he was that shot of passion I'd been seeking.

Now look at us. My hand brushes against my lower abdomen, already feeling sensitive and swollen. We were never supposed to be this.

I don't get scared too often. It takes a lot to leave me rattled. And it wasn't because I finally recognized he was out of his mind. It wasn't the wild look in his eyes or that a couple of his frantic words sounded more like broken Vietnamese than English. It wasn't how he was starting to get rough with me. Stuff like that only turns me on.

No, none of that's what got me so spooked. But oh how my blood ran cold and my breath left my body when the name Patty fell from his beautiful lips.

 _"Soda, what the fuck just happened? Get your shit and get out."_

* * *

"Hey man," Soda's yelling at us from the kitchen, "somebody needs to turn that shit up right now."

Steve chimes in, "Hell yeah, that's mine and Soda's theme song, ain't that right Sodapop?" I think they're laughing in there but it's hard to hear over all the drawers Soda's been slamming for the past few minutes.

Darry leans back to reach the radio, but I know he doesn't want to. He hates how Soda gets riled up whenever Fortunate Son comes on. He cranks it up anyway and the walls of our house can hardly hold the onslaught of drums, the twangy whip of the guitar that carries the jungle's heat on each note, crying out the shouts of a million American boys who are still being sent to the slaughter while we watch from our living rooms, chosen because they were born without a trust fund, lacking that "silver spoon in hand."

"Found it," Soda shouts in victory, then struts in, experiencing the music, the song surely written for him, and he belts out "It ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son" right along with Steve. And it seems for them in this moment, nothing outside those two exist.

Soda came home a couple of nights ago. Well, it was in the dark pit of morning actually. Darry even grabbed his gun thinking someone'd broken in. I opened my door to find him locking and loading Dad's old pistol while slinking down our hallway, hair everywhere, glasses on thank God for aim, hand waving wildly at me to stay in my room.

Luckily Soda threw on the lights and there he was, looking burnt out, carrying a limp duffel bag with hardly anything inside. "Shit Darry, and I thought I was the one with the trigger finger."

We both let out our pent up breath, and Darry clasped at his heart and roughly said, "Jesus Soda, I think I'm finally dying of a fucking heart attack."

"Yeah well how do you think I feel? I'm the one who almost got his ass shot," but Soda didn't look scared in the least. Just really tired.

Then we all stood there and stared at each other in the fog of morning. Darry slowly started unloading his bullets, until I thought to ask, "What are you doing home Soda?"

Of course we now can't stop laughing about the near shoot-out that took place, and Soda and I haven't let up on making fun of Darry and his panic. I know it shouldn't make me happy Glory kicked him out, but I love having my brother back home. His welcome return comes just before I have to go back to school next week. Back to my world apart, while life here treads forward without me. But tonight the guys are over and we're hanging out. It almost feels like old times. Almost.

"Here it is, found it right where I left it. Her digits," Soda flicks a tiny scrap of paper at Darry, and it helicopters down, landing on his shoulder. "So c'mon Pistol Pete," he drawls on and winks at our brother, "you ain't got no excuse not to call her now." His grin is teasing then spreads, before he takes a big drag off his millionth cigarette since he gave in and went back to smoking.

"Soda this number's a hundred years old, hell, the paper's even yellowin'." Darry doesn't make a move, all leaned back like he's some badass in his chair, feet resting arrogantly on the coffee table.

"Naw, I probably just spilled somethin' on it." Soda's starting to tune the radio to another station.

"Ain't no way Lizzie Monroe's still livin' at her parents' house." Darry sounds so sure of this fact, but he reaches for the paper and tucks it in his pocket anyway.

"Then call her parents, man. Worth a shot trackin' down that broad," Two-Bit starts in again about it, wearing his most serious face while he points at Darry for effect. "If she still looks half as good as she did back in school Dar, then that's a mighty fine catch."

Ever since Darry ran into Lizzie when he picked me up from my caddying job at the club the other day, we've been trying to get him to make his move. Cause Lizzie Monroe is still one hot piece of ass. And I told everyone how she was fawning all over him, even after all these years. She's the only girl that I can ever remember driving my brothers into a knock-down-drag-out all over our kitchen floor.

We've all settled into our usual seats, the spots in this room that over time have held us up and to each other. And I appreciate all the familiar ways of tonight. Maybe this is what Soda's been needing more than his therapy. And without direction, nobody's dared to drink a drop.

Two-Bit's going on to Darry about his luck in the dating life, about how he always ends up in bed with the wackos, ("I even had one girl, shit you not, wanted me to suck on her toes the other night,") while Steve and I are talking to Soda about his fight with Gloria. Season of the Witch has come on and couldn't set the scene any better, as "you've got to pick up every stitch" claws its way down my spine.

"Man, you can't help calling out someone's name in a dream," Steve says in Soda's defense.

"How you think Evie'd react?" Soda asks his best friend, looking like he wants his advice. Steve is as close to married as you'll get, more married to Evie than Soda is to Glory, despite their gold bands and the actual paperwork. All that proves nothing.

"She'd probably be pissed at first," Steve says, really giving it thought. "But I think she could understand if it was some wartime flashback. What'd you dream anyway?"

I'm glad he asked, cause I hadn't wanted to. And since Steve opened it up for discussion, I get brave and ask what we're all dying to know. "Yeah, and who's name did you call out?"

Suddenly all his energy from before has disappeared as he breathes a heavy sigh and runs a hand down his face. Darry and Two-Bit quiet down, waiting. "I can't remember the dream, and you wouldn't know the girl." His face is on lockdown when he looks me straight on. I know that face. I see through those eyes that have stared me down for years, the ones that could control me when we were young, that said I'd better take him for his word or else. Even when, especially when the words were lies. And like always, I drop my eyes first, forever the submissive in our complicated relationship.

The night flows forward, jokes are cracked, ribbing ensues, laughs ring out and Soda's back to his spirited self. I wonder how long his mood will last though when I start to sniff the signs. Noticing all of his tells. The constant movement, the manic talking, the knee jerk reactions. By the time the guys have left and it's just the three of us lounging when the national anthem plays the television off the air, I feel the mood in the room has shifted. Soda's mood. And isn't that what governs us all?

"Did you tell them not to drink in front of me Darry?" Soda questions Darry, even though Darry's got his eyes closed. For Soda, it's never a bad time to start some shit.

Darry's had it, I can tell. He opens up one eye, looking at Soda with a cocked eyebrow, and doesn't put much effort into his tired, raspy voice when he says, "No. Would it matter if I did when they already know everything?" Surprisingly, Darry truly didn't say a word to us about being good. He's telling the truth.

"Yeah, it'd matter Darry," Soda's says hopping up. "Would it matter if I asked them not to bring up all your fucked up issues? Wouldn't you feel weird if everyone talked about the most uncomfortable things about you, so they could plan how they weren't going to talk about it, all while talking about that very thing ?" Soda's not making sense and itching for a fight.

You'd think Darry was peacefully sleeping if it weren't for his shoulders starting to shake and the smile slowly appearing with the laugh that's starting to erupt from deep within. It's a quiet, exhausted, disturbing laugh. Now I know he's really had it.

He opens his eyes, stands and throws his hands up. "I give Soda. Is that what you wanna hear? I didn't tell the guys not to drink, but I don't care if you believe me, cause if I had told the guys to maybe leave out the beers tonight, my intention would only be good. It's always good. It's always well intended and meant to help. If that's so wrong, then you can go fuck yourself." He walks out of the room and I'm surprised Soda doesn't follow him, continuing the argument. Instead his shoulders slump and his eyes are downcast.

Darry's not finished cause I hear him pounding back down the hall, his voice now getting closer and louder with the approach. "I'll tell you what Sodapop, you can be sure I didn't speak of it with the guys tonight. You wanna know why? Cause if there's one thing I know how to do, it's how to _not_ talk about things. I've spent my entire life keeping every secret that ever tore through this house. I'm trained real good for this shit. And it's time somebody started talking or you're as good as fucked. You've got a baby comin' down the pike and man, you're more worried about who's talking about what. Hell, all I've ever done is carry people's bullshit. We've carried all this," he continues exploding as his closed fist fires down against Mom's piano, "all this family bullshit for years and you know what I'm talking about."

My eyes are wide with alarm as I watch my oldest brother tearing apart at the seams. His softer voice suddenly sounds young and searching and tragic all at once. "Don't you remember Soda? Don't you? You remember, huh?"

I don't know if Soda has any clue what Darry's talking about. He looks as in the dark as I feel. But I watch the scene play out. And I watch Darry's face begging for something, and I watch the pain start to slowly set in on Soda, his head shaking no against the rush of something, and his voice is so small I almost lean to hear.

"I'm sorry Darry."

"No," is Darry's dominating response. "Uh uh. Nobody gets to be sorry." And he walks away leaving Soda in his devastating wake and me in utter confusion. But Darry calls out before his slamming door, "You better be at our appointment tomorrow Sodapop Curtis or so help you God." The floor shakes on its foundation.

* * *

Who has to knock on their own door, I think bitterly as I rap four times hard against the chipping paint. The neighborhood cat whines out in heat. It's three in the morning and I just want some sleep. And maybe a blow job. Or I'd settle for a sense of peace.

I hear sluggish footsteps, a pause, the sound of three metal locks clicking open and a chain sliding across. We don't live in the safest neighborhood.

The door opens slowly, revealing her tired face, bleary eyes, and I think I prefer her this way. "Why are you here?" is her greeting, cause she'd never ever make this easy for me.

"I'm your husband, whatta you mean why am I here?" I know I sound rough, certainly not apologetic, so I take a breath and start over. "I'm sorry Gloria. I had a bad dream. I don't even remember why I said her name. It was probably just on my brain cause we saw her recently. It's got nothing to do with how I really feel. Now why don't you go on and let me in hon."

There's relief when she lets me pass, but once she shuts the door behind me, she starts her attack I fully expected. She's right behind me, yelling all the while as I continue walking, down a glass of water, kick off my shoes, look over the latest mail, head for the bathroom, brush my teeth, hardly hearing the violent words she's firing at me, all the empty threats. I'm too tired to comprehend, but I hear things like any man would love to have her and I'm lucky she puts up with me and some other shit like that. I let her go on and I'm starting to unbutton my shirt thinking what I'd be willing to do for one tiny bump of coke right now.

"..and things are gonna change around here, cause guess what Soda, now I've got all the control." I open up the window for some air, turn off the lamp, unbuckle my belt. "If you don't pull your shit together I won't think twice about keeping this baby from ever knowing who the hell you are, Daddy."

It couldn't have been as much as a millisecond, but my brain finally caught up with my actions, and we're both realizing I just took her by her arms and slammed her twice against the wall, good and hard. She's still pinned there, eyes scared shitless and it's silent except for my breathing. My chest rises and falls against the swirling destruction around us. I clench my teeth and go in for the kill. My words are dripping bloodlust, my voice more of a low growl, but clear all the same.

"You'll never threaten me with that again if you know what's good for you. And if you ever take my baby anywhere without my permission, I'll hunt you down so fast and so quiet you won't even know what's hit you. Best you don't forget I'm a hunter." I let her go, and leave her standing there while I crawl into bed, letting the bite of those words sink in. I meant them.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton, Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Season of the Witch by Donovan


	13. Chapter 13

**THE TRIP**

PART XIII

Suddenly I'm not sure of up or down, like my head's been inside a bell that's just been rung, but he keeps me from falling. His gripping hands hold me up and tight against the drywall that scrapes like sandpaper on my lower back, and his body's positioned to pin mine, the heat between us so intense, so intoxicating I'm drowning in it. That mouth of mine that's been running on fury nonstop since he came home now lies slack, dormant and dumb.

"Best you don't forget I'm a hunter," the words slice through me, his already fated prey, and he suddenly lets go, my arms dropping to my sides like heavy lead, muscles useless, the phantom feel of fingers no longer there. The mint of his leftover toothpaste lingers cool in the air where he leaves me discarded, while an invading heat that's fanning out across my chest starts to blossom up my neck.

I watch him climb into our bed as if I'm not in the room, and frankly part of me isn't. My ears buzz from the electric adrenaline that's kicked in. My breath is shaky, not with fear but with a confusing desperation, right on the brink of a fulfillment that's wicked and wrong. My blood takes off on a wild race, spilling over aching, long-neglected chasms, and I realize I don't think I've felt a rush like this since I took my last hit. I can't ignore the coiling hungry warmth that starts to snake around those throbbing, lower parts of me, the ones Soda can light on fire with all that he is.

All I can do now is look at him stretched out flawless in the moonlight, and accept the fact that something's always been wrong with me.

I walk over slowly and wonder what I'm about to do, though it seems my body knows already. My hand runs up his dangerous arm and what starts gentle becomes more assertive, my nails slowly dragging along the skin I crave, scraping now against his tattoo and I remember that he was once a ruthless soldier. He responds by moving lazily from his side to his back. His features are devastating and my eyes shut for a moment against their perfection.

I climb on top and straddle him, the position of power that we both battle for, in all aspects of our lives. We're alpha wolves prowling for dominance, but as much as I fight for and need that control, something primitive inside me purrs in comfort when Soda wins. And especially now, carrying our baby, I feel safer locked inside his threat.

"Would you really hunt me?" I dare to ask, my voice sounding foreign when it finally returns. The question sits in the night's tense air, until he picks it up and gives me what I want.

His "yes" is sinister and strangely seductive and I know now without doubt I can't be with someone who wouldn't hunt me down. I was never meant for bland romance. I was born for things untamed, wild and territorial. I've been waiting all my life to be captured.

I start rolling my hips against his hardness, but I refuse his reaching hands, force them down and use my own hand to give myself what I want. And I let him watch, watch me pleasure myself without needing any part of him.

But I find it doesn't matter really, that I sit high above and won't let his hands partake; it makes no difference. Only Soda could beat me at my own game. And tonight, when he let his roughness seep out of those boundaries of the bedroom and showed me he'll stop at nothing, I finally see now the order of things, where I fit in our crooked puzzle life.

"What would you do to me Soda? If you caught me, huh?" I'm barely hanging on the edge, but I'll always want to fall into our sick addictions.

Even through the shadow of those thick lashes his eyes can penetrate me more than my fingers now, and his haunting answer, quiet and guttural, takes my breath because he means it.

"I'd break you."

xXx

I find him in the bathroom, bent over the sink, faucet full blast. He's splashing his face and when he pops back up my stomach jumps when I see his clean and gorgeous face. He meets my eyes in the mirror and his smile is slow. He shaved for me. A kind of peace offering.

I look in the mirror, the gray tint of morning light revealing dark circles under my eyes from a late night. I turn to the side and wonder when I'll really start showing. I tug at a fallen bra strap and realize my arms show no markings from the altercation. And I'm almost disappointed. I want something visible for myself. The sign that I'm his. I'm Soda's. And Soda's wanted by everybody.

* * *

The clock ticks on. Her voice is always so even and calm. "Darry says your mother had some...issues in your earlier childhood. Can you think back and tell us what you can remember Soda?" She puts on her glasses and smiles encouragingly.

Darry breathes and shifts in his chair beside me and though it's hard to "uncover our pasts" as Dr. Fran calls it, I'm glad Darry's doing it with me. I don't like to be alone in here.

I look down at a snag in the carpet, and try to sift through the file of a million memories that flash by, most of them warm. I work at concentrating harder, but Dr. Fran has a cold today and I can hear her cough drop click against her teeth when she moves it to the other side of her mouth, can smell the medicine of it. It makes me think of the Ipecac syrup my mother forced down me whenever she thought I'd eaten something I shouldn't have. Like a leaf or a dirty sucker I found on the sidewalk or a stolen sip out of her special glass. Or a bite of meat on Friday. It was an accident.

"It's tainted," she'd say, in a panic over any of those things, "It might make you sick baby," when that's exactly what Ipecac does. Makes you so sick on purpose. "Be a good boy now and drink every last drop for Momma," and with the dread of knowing what would come next, I'd already be crying before the familiar cramping and vomiting even hit.

But she loved me.

Darry's as patient as Dr. Fran. Nobody's pushing me as I take my time, leaned over now, elbows to knees, studying my hands.

 _"Soda? Hon, let me see your hands." Dad pulls my chapped and raw hands into his big ones. Turns them over, palms up, examining the cracked weeping skin. "What happened?" His eyebrows are set with concern, his voice is wrought with worry. I shrug and say nothing, then look to Darry._

My thumb massages my palm. I want a cigarette. I swallow and look up. "I remember." My mouth feels dry and my voice sounds shaky and both of them look over expectantly. Darry's presence is a comfort. I go on. "I remember washing hands."

"Yes," Darry says suddenly alive. He reaches over and gives my arm a squeeze while he moves to the edge of the chair. "Mom went on some big kick of makin' us wash our hands all the time, and I mean all the time. She worried over all the germs we were pickin' up at school. She even started wakin' us up to do it in the middle of the night," he explains to Fran, then he jerks his thumb towards me, "especially Soda, for some reason him a lot more than me." She nods and writes something down.

Darry looks over and sees my sadness. While he feels validated after years of carrying it on his own, to me it feels painful digging up the past. He's speaking to Fran but looks only at me. "She was so sick then," he says now with pity.

"So, did your mother have any other compulsive behaviors?" Fran asks us, chin in her hand. To our confused faces she elaborates. "Did she double check, triple check everything like locks? Or have some ritualistic behaviors she had to do so things would be alright?"

 _I climb in bed with her, afternoon sun heating the closed off room. "What are you doing Momma?" I ask and cuddle in close, breathing her in. I've played with Darry all day and missed her while she slept._

 _"Hey baby," she says like always but her hug is cut short and she clicks her tongue. "Gotta start over," she says to herself._

 _"Start over with what?" I ask but she never looks at me. Her eyes are focused on the wall._

 _"Oh it's nothing Soda. Just something Momma's gotta do." She brings my hand to her mouth and kisses my fingers and I figure out she's counting those pretty yellow flowers on the wallpaper. I lean into her side, rest my chin on her shoulder and decide to count the little buttons on her nightgown._

"Probably," Darry's answering, "there's no telling what she did back in that bedroom."

"Why are we doing this?" I cut in, a white hot anger beginning in the pit of my stomach. "She was a good mother, she loved us," my voice cracks, so I focus more on my anger. "This is shameful what we're doin' to her Darry. She ain't even here to defend herself God rest her soul," and Darry's leaning over now, his arm across my shoulders.

I see the alarm on his face. "Nobody said she was bad Soda, we're just," but I cut him off.

"That's exactly what we're sayin' Darry. Talkin' 'bout all them bad times. Hell, that ain't all she was and you know it."

"Don't you think I love Mom?" Now Darry takes his arm back and he's getting mad at me. "She was a great mother," and then he adds, "when she got better." And the way Darry says it, I can sense that for him, by that time, the damage had already been done.

"Nobody's questioning the love you both have for Maggie." How does she even know her name? What all has Darry been telling my doctor? The name Maggie now sounds foreign to me. I haven't heard it in years, since Dad's the only one who used it. And it feels strange hearing it, because all of a sudden, it's making her more of a person. Maggie? Maggie. Maggie wasn't just a mom. She was a woman, and at one time a little girl. The thought never crossed my mind till now.

"Soda, it's amazing the recovery your mother made. And the only reason we're focused on her issues right now is to help you recover. We can't fix you today if you're carrying around a broken yesterday. Childhood plays a big part in who we are." I swallow, take a deep breath. I'm starting to calm down.

"And Soda, mental issues can be hereditary. Darry says your mother started showing signs around the birth of her," she glances down at her chart, "third child." I feel Darry's eyes shift to me, a hard stare. I think about Ponyboy. I'm so glad he's not in this room with us. I want to save him from all this. All Darry and I have ever tried to do is save him from the shit that's always blown our way.

"This puts her right around her mid twenties," Fran goes on while I'm blown away thinking how young that is. "And that's a common age for onset. Just about your age Soda." My breath gets knocked out of me.

"What the hell are y'all sayin'? That Mom and I are a couple of nut jobs?" I look at both of them, feeling their stab in my back. Wondering what they might be plotting. I feel my mother next to me, both of us victims in all this.

Dr. Fran has never backed away from any of my explosions. She just gives me that same, pleasant smile, almost like a mother and I think that's why we get along. "Soda, I don't like hearing those words. They're offensive to me. Your mother wasn't a nut job. She was more than likely dealing with severe postpartum issues that triggered anxiety and depression. Then in walked Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to gain back a sense of control. Alcoholism to self-medicate."

Dr. Fran continues, this time about me. "You might possibly be experiencing your own imbalance. That's all it is. It's brain chemistry. It has nothing to do with lack of strength. And yours was probably triggered by the trauma you've recently experienced in Vietnam. And quite frankly, the trauma that's plagued both of you boys for quite a long time. With the death of your parents, the stress of raising a little brother, the loss of your close friends, the war that's had an effect on all of you." She lists off our life story like it's the soap opera section in the TV Guide. And I'm realizing just how rough we've had it.

"Darry, do you know anything about your mother's recovery?" I look to Darry cause I'd like to know myself.

He just shakes his head. "Only that she went away for a little while." He looks sorry that he doesn't know more. Probably cause he'd send me to the same place. Darry wants to fix everything.

Fran just nods and says "Okay, I'm guessing that was a hospital stay." She taps her pen against the desk. "Well, the point is Soda, we need to deal with identifying any issues you may have. We've got to get you well so we can better handle your addictions and start coming to terms with your wartime experiences." Just the thought of it wears me out. Exhaustion creeps in and settles on my body. "So, we'll start with this. Do you think you may have any compulsive behaviors?"

Darry cocks an eyebrow but stays quiet, waiting to see what I'll say, knowing all my truths. The way I used to tap the light switch every time I left our room, he could probably still tell you how the pattern went. Walking in to find me cleaning the bathroom tiles in the middle of those hard nights when I came home right after the war. And he doesn't even know all the strange and ordered procedures I'd developed living in that jungle. All of these rituals were what kept me alive. "Maybe," is all I answer.

Dr. Fran smiles like she's proud of me. "Soda, let's stop for today. You've done a great job searching your past. I know that isn't easy for you." And while she and Darry take off on their own conversation my mind drifts again to my youth. Some days above others I miss having a mother...

 _I'm more careful than usual, concentrating more than ever, tongue out working the corner of my mouth while I work at not sloshing the drink I carry. Her room isn't just quiet. It's still. Stuffy. I wish she'd open some windows. I make it to her bedside. "Mom I brought your drink." I set it down and worry at the drops that spill on her nightstand. I look around for tissues, but they're all used and wadded around her. I use my hand and smear it in, then lick the bitter off my palm. Good thing she didn't see that._

 _She turns to face me, smiling. She looks happy maybe. She pats the mattress next to her. "Wanna snuggle?"_

 _I feel a warmth descend from my head all the way to my bare toes and I don't waste time climbing into the blankets she's opened to let me in. We wrap our bodies around each other, limbs over limbs, heart to heart. It's closeness. The kind of touch I thrive on. I listen to her heart thumping in her chest and feel mine synching with it. "You've always been my snuggle bunny," she says, and the afternoon drifts over us. Nobody, nothing else exists but the two of us. I soon realize why she's surrounded by tissues when she starts softly crying into my hair. I don't ask why._

 _She's asleep when I leave her. She didn't even notice my gift of the drink. I take it and tiptoe away. Close her door with barely a click. Head to the kitchen where Darry's fixing Pony a grilled cheese. Stand at the sink. Take a couple of big gulps that burn and toss it down the drain._

xXx

Since Pony's got the truck, Darry rode with me to our appointment. Instead of just dropping him off at the house, I decide to hang out for awhile. Darry's flicking the business card with his thumb, then drops it in the junk drawer of the kitchen, probably never to be seen again. "Of course I'd walk into someone else's therapy session and come out with a reference to another shrink," his short laugh is more exasperation as he flips his grill cheese. Though Darry'll probably sit in on a few more of my sessions, Fran thinks Darry could benefit from his own private counseling. Dr. Fran though only works for the VA, she can't treat Darry cause he's not a vet. So she recommended one of her friends. It wouldn't hurt Darry to go. I'm sure he's got his fair share of problems to work out.

I sigh and stand up from the table, "I can't really understand how this is helpin'. It sure ain't doin' much to make me feel better about life. Seems like all we've done is open up Pandora's Box of troubles. I mean, holy shit right?"

"I guess that's how it's s'posed to work. You want one of these?" he asks me, throwing the sandwich of oozing melted Velveeta on the plate.

"Naw I ain't hungry. Just gonna pick up a few more of my shirts and get outta here." I start walking back to my bedroom.

"Pony'll be here in a few if you wanna wait. Hell, why don't you stay for supper? We're havin' Manwich and tater tots." Darry knows that's one of my favorites.

"Thanks, but I reckon I need to be gettin' home to Gloria. Eat with her before I head to work. I've got the graveyard shift tonight." Darry doesn't talk to me about my job all that much.

"Well, Gloria's welcome to come. Somethin' tells me she knows how to handle a Manwich." I chuckle and I appreciate Darry's invitation as he's bending over backwards to make me feel welcome. Something about it's comforting after what we've just gone through.

"We'll see," I say not wanting to commit just yet. I leave Darry to his sandwich and I can hear him cursing when he burns his tongue on all that hot cheese.

On the way to my room, something pulls me to the pictures above the piano. I know each one like the back of my hand. They've stood there forever, and I notice they never look dusty. There's a pull on my heart when I think it must be Darry who's been dusting every single one all these years.

I sit at the bench, give a quick tap to the pedals with my feet and pull off the silver frame on the far right, way in the back. It's an old shot of me, black and white, I'd say about four. Grinning wide, and I look deep into my eyes, the eyes of that little boy and look for signs of what's to come. He couldn't know the grief that lay before him. Those were happier times, easier times. Or were they? Now I question if we were ever happy. With all that sickness lurking in my blood, waiting to take me down. And right now there are two of me. The me of today and the boy who's someone else. And I want to weep for him.

It's been so long since I've had a mother. A tender touch. A nurturing word. Something in me must seek it out. A sweet telephone operator or a kind cashier lady only has to call me honey to bring that out in me. Bring my arm hairs on end. Cold chill or goose bump. A teary eye even. A rise in me to meet the motherliness of even a stranger. Dr. Fran's kindness. Her want to help me soothes even if she's paid to do it. I stare at the little boy and wonder what Patty would think about this part of my youth.

 _We're sharing a smoke out back. Like always. Looks like a werewolf moon with the clouds flying over it. I've just told Patty why I don't have parents. And it's been long enough not to hurt when I say it. I say it lightly now cause I'd never want to make anyone feel bad for bringing it up. "It was a long time ago, so it's alright."_

 _I take a drag off my cigarette and hear her sniff. Then another. "Patty?" I ask, now turning to her, trying to see her face in the dark but the clouds now darken the moon. "Are you cryin'?"_

 _She wipes her eyes real fast and gives a laugh to show she's fine. "I'm not crying." But I can tell she is. Just a little._

 _We sit in silence and I soak in what's just happened. Finally she sounds normal again, but says "Just makes me so sad is all. I hurt for you." And it's such a heartfelt thing to say and it doesn't matter she's years younger, I feel cared for, like all that's crying out inside of me has been stilled for the moment, graced by the most tender touch._

I don't know how long I've been staring at this picture of me. But suddenly Pony's hands rest on my shoulders from behind. And I'm glad he's home. So I can put that little boy away for awhile.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	14. Chapter 14

_A little preface for Chapter 14: Darry's POV towards the end will really be referencing a lot of my other story the Beginning. You don't have to read that to understand, but in case his dream and his flashbacks to therapy are confusing, you probably do need to know that Pony had a twin brother who died at birth. His mother forced Darry to keep that secret and attacked him once as a kid when she thought he told Pony, but he hadn't told. It's a whole big thing but that's all you need to know. OH, and I'm sure you could already tell Pony still has no clue about any of it; the twin, his mother's addiction or depression in those early years..._

 **THE TRIP**

PART XIV

The slam of the screen door bites at my heels and I head for the porch swing and drape myself across it.

"You packed up for tomorrow Pony?" Darry's question rises out of the gathering dark of dusk, and I hear Two-Bit slap away a mosquito.

"Yeah," I answer him, though I'm far from finished. "I'll pack all my bathroom stuff after I take a shower in the mornin'," I say mostly to myself and then cringe at the thought of having to go back to public bathrooms. "Damn, it'll be my last shower all to myself for a long time," I groan.

"You got some flip flops?" Darry asks, like me worried over all the spreadable fungus on the bathroom floors of a dorm.

"Flip flops?" Two-Bit cuts in as he's jingling his keys and standing to go, "that's your concern? Flip flops? How bout soap on a rope? Dear God Darry please tell me you got this boy some soap on a rope so he don't have to bend over."

His grin is huge as he walks over for a goodbye. And I hate goodbyes. I start to rise up to meet him, but he tells me "Naw don't get up." So I lie there and he grabs my hand in his, starts slapping it around and doing all kinds of crazy hand and finger holds like we've got some elaborate secret handshake. By now I'm chuckling as he lets go and ends it with a finger gun that I return.

He's truly crazy.

"Be good Ponyboy Curtis. I'll hold down the fort while you're gone."

And he's truly kind.

"See ya Two-Bit." We watch him sail off in his boat sized car.

The thick humidity's dampened all conversation, but after several minutes I break the silence. "You gotta promise to keep me in the loop Darry," and he's been waiting for me to say this cause he's on it immediately.

"Ponyboy, don't I always?" he asks, tired of my constant nagging about it. I want to tell him no, you don't always. But I don't want to fight our last night. I sit up and light a smoke.

"What a summer," I say, shaking my head. The beginning of it seems a hundred years ago but still time went so fast.

"No shit man," Darry breathes and runs a hand through his hair. "Sorry it wasn't much of a vacation for ya."

"Just think next summer there'll be a baby," I add, trying to keep reminding myself Soda's gonna be a dad before long.

Darry doesn't even have a remark for that statement.

I'm doing my best but can't steer this conversation to peaceful. Things are too complicated for peace, and too much worry swirls inside for me to act like things are gonna be okay. "He's still so far from who he was," I say to Darry, trying to hide the desperation in my voice.

"We're gettin' somewhere with him," Darry says softly now, trying to assure me, but how would I know they're getting somewhere? I don't know what goes on in those therapy sessions. I know when they come home from them they try and act normal but they ain't fooling me. I've asked Darry before what they talk about and his answers are always a bunch of horseshit.

I stare at Darry in the glow of the porch light. He stares back. And I don't let go of his eyes. My face means business and my look is firm. He knows what I need but he won't ever just give it to me.

His voice is back to harsh. "Ponyboy, I always call you when shit goes down." And it's true. He does. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Or feeling left out when I have to live away from them.

"Yeah okay," I back down, look out at the yard of blinking lightning bugs. He still doesn't make that promise though. And somehow I know there are a million things I don't know. And that's what scares me.

* * *

I'm only here to keep Dr. Fran off my back. I've kept my promise and this is now my fourth group meeting. I don't participate. Just work at maintaining a low profile. It's the one place I don't actually walk in and take over the room. I don't talk, don't smile, keep to myself. I try and stay still while the other Vets go on and on about their experiences, their complaints of civilian life, their nightmares of military life, their families and friends that are too soft or too hard on 'em, or just don't give a shit at all. The way the war still hasn't stopped for them or the guilt that eats them alive. But I tune it out.

And sometimes halfway through, my body gets so restless I can't keep still anymore and I walk over to the snack table and pour some ice water. Make it look like I'm thirsty, instead of like someone so pathetic who just can't control himself beyond a fucking hour.

I chew on ice and the leader shoots daggers so I dial it back.

But the beginning of group is the worst part. The only time I'm forced to speak. We go around the room and introduce ourselves. And everyone freely gives out all their ranks and companies, platoons and units. And I don't like the way their eyes widen in surprise when I tell them I'm LRRP. I don't dare tell them I was in Tiger Force and I make sure I'm out the door before the snacks and mingling afterwards, so nobody has the chance to find out anything more about me.

* * *

I smile and say, "You don't have to do this, ya know?"

"Shut up Soda and get over here," Steve snaps, bent over the counter. I mosey on up beside him, my back to the glass, slouching against it.

"Y'all are still young, why be an old married couple when you don't have to be?" I ask staring at the old guy with gray hair in the back of the store. "I mean, don't get me wrong. We all dig the hell out of Evie. I like her more than I like you. Why would either of you want to be tied down?"

Steve stands up and turns to face me. His eyes are confused. "Says the guy who's already married with a kid on the way?"

I shrug and chuckle. Slap his shoulder. "Hey I'm just trying to do my job. Ain't that what the best man's s'posed to say? Give you an out?"

His grin is all encompassing, and I'm so happy for my oldest friend. "Don't need an out man. I'm all in on this one. It's gotta be her. Only her. Me and Evie plan on ridin it all out together." And I see him look beyond me, like he sees the life that lay out before him and isn't afraid to stare it in the face.

And my heart catches in my throat. His love for her is all over him, he wears it like a three piece suit. I swallow hard. And feel naked.

"So take a look," he says and pulls me down to his bent position, pointing at a row of rings. "It's between them two. Which one of 'em would Evie like?"

I can't see a single diamond with these pawn shop walls closing in around me. I clear my throat and try to make a comeback but my entire future beckons me with its old gnarled finger, cackling and waiting to swallow me up. I tell him softly, "The left one."

* * *

"God we make a sexy couple," Glory says, slamming the passenger door shut, and I'm glad to finally be driving us away from Mitchell's. It's painful to be at a party and not be able to _party_. She's still going on, "All those girls there were just wishin' they were me," and she's pure sex as she slides across the seat, running her hand over my thigh, finding its way between my legs. Grabbing. Greedy. Suddenly I just might break out of this bad mood. "Nobody's hotter than us baby," and her voice drips lust against my ear.

I press on the gas, driving blind but guided by all those promised sins that wait for us at home.

And this is what we're good at. The only thing that saves us. Two people that'll never get what they're really craving. As fast as this car, my mind races with all the ways I'm going to tear her apart, exactly how she wants it. The only way I can.

I'm already rough by the time we make it home and she makes me wait. I sit on the couch and watch her undress, lighted by the tv's blue glow behind her. My eyes defile her as they take her in. They graze over those perfect tits and make their way down. And that's when everything comes to a grinding halt. My blood, my libido, the hands of the clock.

Her silhouette has changed with a stomach now swollen, a small but visible mound that suddenly makes all of this real. My breath's been stolen.

And I can't do this. She's crawling over to me, to all that deviance she's used to, and there's no way on earth I can give it to her like this. Not now when my baby's inside of her. She waits for something I can't give, and I can only stare, like someone who just got slapped hard across the face by God Himself.

* * *

 _My thumb presses over the rusty mouth of the garden hose, causing the rushing water to fan out over the puddled sidewalk and the little boys who run to meet it. The gentle showering spray collides with a lazy afternoon sun, and my brothers jump through the prism of colors that can't ever be caught. They're little and wild and need baths, and Soda with his head down, whips his wild mop of hair against the much harsher stream I've now aimed directly at him. Ponyboy, still practically a baby, squeals as he runs for the gate to keep a safe distance from me, and out of nowhere my mother's slaps rain down across my body. The ice cold water keeps rushing over the tops of my feet where I dropped the hose, and for some reason it makes my head ache like an ice cream brain freeze. I watch Soda laugh and kick at the sidewalk stream and can't believe he doesn't even notice Mom whaling away on me. Peering through my arms that cover my head in protection, I look for Pony, and the whole world stops when I see there are now two of him leaning against our chain link fence…_

A neighborhood dog barks me awake and I curse the therapy that's stirring up all these crazy dreams. My head is pounding, I rub my temples, wondering if I'm catching something or if it's just stress. I only brought all this past shit to the light to help Soda get better but I guess I've opened up my own can of worms. I shake my head. It's no surprise I'm haunted tonight by such disturbing dreams after the session Soda and I had today. Our last session together. My hardest one.

 _Soda's remembering. We give him space. We give him quiet. I pull my eyes away from the three paperclips I'm linking together. I see what I expected. Soda's not even making a sound, but for me, his visible pain's as loud as thunder. I look to Fran for direction. She just stares at my little brother and waits. So I do the same._

It's only a little after three but it feels like I'm up for good so I don't even fight it. I climb out of bed to search for aspirin and walk through my house that feels so empty now. Soda's off and married, Pony's left us again, back to his other life he leads, a student juggling pre-med classes and all the track meets that help pay for them. His running's now become merely a job for all those tuition bills, and I know for him it's lost a lot of qualities about it that he used to enjoy. I tell him get used to it. Life has a way of dulling down most things that were once shiny and alluring.

 _"Darry had it the worst," Soda finally says. He's talking to Fran but looks at me, and I watch his jaw set, like he does when he's trying to hold everything in and together. "Ain't never got hit like he did." The way he says it brings it all back up like bile in my throat and I immediately want to press down against it, hide it underneath all those happier years that came to save us all soon after. "I'm so sorry Darry," he whispers now to me, clutching my forearm._

 _And with the strong reflexes conditioned through years of suppressed feelings and restraint, I automatically and without thought reply, "It's okay. It didn't hurt."_

There's little point in walking quietly in the dark when there's nobody here to disturb, so I flip on the hall light and head for Pony's room instead of the medicine cabinet. I need relief of a different kind, and I open up his closet, yank the chain on the light bulb and reach high above. My hand searches, moving past old board games and dusty yearbooks, until I'm straining on my toes, feeling around the space in the way back and finally brush against the shoebox I'm determined to get a hold of. This is Pony's secret hiding place that we've all known about, where he tucked away the treasures of his youth. Gone are the old rocks, the marbles, the various prizes won in a penny arcade. Now all that's left are a couple of fossils, a love note and some real high quality, college bought weed. He thinks I don't know how he prefers to listen to music. But I don't say anything about him getting high back here. It isn't that often and hell, what kid doesn't anymore? I suddenly realize how I'm slowly but surely laying down my parental responsibilities and morphing once again into Pony's brother.

 _Soda and I have just finished discussing our youngest brother with Fran. How he's never known the truth. How his beginning was at once Mom's greatest gain, her most heartbreaking loss and the catalyst of her fall into madness. "Maybe it's time to bring Ponyboy into the secret," Dr. Fran says carefully, eyes darting between us. Our "no"s are adamant and in unison._

I sift through rolling papers and opt for his one-hitter, sit at his desk while I pack it, not too tight, and feel shame to be doing this when I've got Soda's addictions on my conscience. But not guilty enough to walk away. I fly across the room on the rolling chair and raise the window where I prop my bare feet on the sill, light up and let the smoke burn my throat. I hold it all in with my head leaned back, one arm thrown across my eyes, and wait until my lungs force me to fight against their suffocation, my chest finally in spasms until I blow it all out free. I sink into a warm buzz.

 _"From what I've heard about Ponyboy, he seems strong and mature." We nod in agreement. "He's part of this family, its history. Doesn't he have a right to know?"_

 _I look over at Soda to gauge his reaction to Fran's sudden turn. I've spent years keeping Pony under a protective veil. How could I possibly rip it off on purpose? Then again, Dad was always an open book and he told me if it were up to him, Pony would be aware of what we lost, all that Pony lost the very day he was born. Soda's still shaking his head no though, and like Dad did with Mom all those years ago, I follow Soda's wishes and agree. I tell Fran, "Nope. Not an option."_

But maybe he does deserve to know. He's stronger than we ever give him credit for. He's not a little kid. And I remember the dark snowy night he rescued me, threw me his hand to grasp and pulled me out of my relentless sea of panic over losing Soda in that awful war.

After a few more hits I'm good and mellow and my head's no longer throbbing. I can't do anything about this crooked smile I've got glued to my face, and I feel a laughter rising up when I think about the night Soda and I tried to sneak back in the house through this very window. I'm full blown laughing by myself now, remembering how Soda was zero help as I tried to push and Pony tried to pull him in.

My laughter all too quickly dies away though when I think how true this image is today. How Pony and I are still pushing and pulling, desperate to help Soda through every window.

 _"Secrets can't haunt you when they no longer become a secret." Dr. Fran's voice is very serious, but hasn't lost that tenderness running underneath. "Darry, you've done your job. You've kept this hidden so well."_ _Her words reach the little kid in me and I can't help but wonder if my mom is proud of how I locked up every secret._ _"It's obviously up to you two, but I'd hate to see this plague all your memories. It can't be easy tiptoeing all the way through life. And Ponyboy just might be needing the answers to questions he didn't even know he had. There's a lot of healing when the light's let in. For all three of you, it could be an awakening."_

We've struggled with Soda through a lot of fucking windows. And now Pony's not even in these sessions with us.

I take in another drag, my eyes squint against the smoke.

We're missing the third link.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	15. Chapter 15

**THE TRIP**

PART XV

"Off Soda," Evie says, nudging my leg and I quickly move my feet from her coffee table, giving her room to squeeze through and get on her hands and knees to pick up magazines and dirty ashtrays.

"So who's your Best Woman anyway?" I ask her through lemon fumes of furniture polish and I watch my best friend's girl going to town with that dust cloth, and I wonder how we got so old.

She looks up a second from cleaning and cracks a grin. "It's called the Maid of Honor, and it's Beth."

I should've guessed she'd choose her little sister, and I'm glad once again Glory and I didn't have a wedding, cause how would I have been able to pick between Pony and Darry for Best Man? I couldn't possibly.

When Steve starts plugging up the vacuum cleaner it's my cue to leave and I grab my smokes and stand up. "I wish I could stay and help y'all clean for your parents," and I look between the two of them and try to find some excuse, then run my hand through my hair and settle for the truth, "but...well, I don't want to."

"Why don't you come back for dinner, bring Gloria," Steve suggests though I don't miss Evie giving him the look that says he needs to quit opening his big mouth, but it's lost on Steve. "Evie's mom always liked you. Always went on and on and on about how polite you were back in high school. I bet she'd love to see you." And I know Steve's just trying to butter me up.

I put Evie out of her misery, her fear that I'm going to say yes and she'll be stuck having to scrounge up two extra meals and find room at a table that's overcrowded as it is, and I decline the offer with that politeness I'm supposed to have. "Aw thanks but no thanks," and I can't help but wink and add, "not with Evie's cookin'."

I fail to escape the towel that she flicks and it whips me in the back. "Jerk," she says but smiles and doesn't mean it cause she knows neither did I. "Oh Soda, I've been meaning to tell you, for the wedding," and I knew I couldn't get out of here without some other wedding thing I'm supposed to do or remember. "Steve's gonna wear his Army uniform. I was thinking you should wear yours too," and she dramatically gasps and throws her hands to her face, "Oh my God y'all will look so handsome for the pictures," and I just stand there while she and Steve launch into some other conversation about the deposit they need to put down for the photographer.

"No," I say interrupting them, feeling way too loud. I turn it down. "I mean, my uniform ain't fit for a weddin'." They stare at me and I stare right back. Too hard it seems.

"She means your service uniform, not your combat," Steve says like he's treading eggshells. It makes me wonder what my face must look like. Judging from Evie's expression, maybe I'm looking scary. I try and soften my eyes but they'll always betray me.

My skin crawls. "That service uniform ain't got nothin' to do with me," and I imagine showing up to the church in my real uniform, what I wore when I killed people. I smile to myself a little when I think how the pictures would turn out then. A white wedding gown for Evie, Steve sharply dressed in the formal uniform he feels proud to wear, and there I'd be right next to Evie's kid sister, with my beat-up fatigue pants, a blood splattered shirt with the sleeves ripped off, my lucky sweaty bandana around my forehead adding the finishing touch. That's my uniform.

I come back from my thoughts when I see Evie and Steve look at each other with concern, and I clear my throat. "Sorry, I just...I can't."

Now they're both talking at once, all their words tumbling together, trying to make everything okay. "Of course not, that's okay, wear what you want, we never want you to feel uncomfortable, please." And I'm mad at myself for making this awkward. My dearest friends in the world shouldn't feel this way around me.

"I'll wear a coat and tie so the pictures'll still look nice," is the best I can offer them. I hear the sympathy hiding in Evie's nervous laugh and I appreciate that she dares to walk over to me, puts her hand on my shoulder like she's not afraid at all.

"Soda, it'll look more than nice." And I zero in on her warm smile and try to match it.

* * *

Sometimes I forget I'm pregnant. I've gone a whole day before without it ever even crossing my mind. And suddenly when I'm quiet and still, I feel a quickening in my stomach, a tickling of bubbles deep inside reminding me what's sitting in my womb. Then I feel bad how this teensy tiny soul had to actually work for my attention. And I wonder if we're both not a little lonely.

Tonight I'm lying in bed thumbing through a magazine, waiting for Soda to join me and wanting to gag at how domestic it all feels. We hardly even fought this week and I miss it. I miss not being married. I miss the wildness. What we used to be to each other. I refuse to be seen as merely wife and mother, and I guess that's why I let Boyd get by with those runaway hands of his at work. I sometimes wonder what would happen if Soda came in to pick me up a little early one day. Let him see for himself what's been going on with the owner. It means nothing to me really. Would it bother Soda? I could easily find out. But I'm too afraid of the answer.

He's been busting his ass at the mill, going to all his meetings, coming home with take-out for us. Soda's trying to be good. And I hate him for it.

I've never been one who worries what people think. I'm confident in who I am and I'll be damned if I'm going to beg for anything from anybody, but all Soda has to do is walk in this room after a shower simply looking like he does, and hell if I don't start picking myself apart. I physically have to stop myself from grasping for his assurances, from crying out, "Am I too fat? Should I change my hair? What can I do to make you fuck me like you used to? " I swallow it all down and hold it in. Never giving him a clue that his neglect is bothering me in the least. To reveal that would be the kiss of death. I'm already sentenced to grow huge, I can't be throwing the ugliness of low self esteem in the mix. There's nothing more unsexy.

He's finally lying down and I throw my magazine, flip off the lamp, try and catch him before he falls asleep. In the dark I run my hands over what's mine, try and bring him back to life, whisper the most indecent things I can think of. And I don't know what's worse. The rejection when he turns away too tired, or the feeling that I'm living off the crumbs he throws when we do have sex, because the passion is so lacking and the act itself so disappointingly tame.

I lie awake after he's fallen asleep and worry. Wondering if there's someone else.

I sneak out of our bedroom to the hallway table. Find his wallet. Turn back to make sure I'm alone before I go through the entire contents. But there aren't any phone numbers. No signs of bad behavior. I put it all back and curl up next to him. Think about what I would do if I really found some sign of another girl. How would I feel? I wouldn't allow it to break my heart. I'd probably just ask her to join us. Hell maybe that's what he needs. Maybe I'll offer up a threesome. I'm willing to try anything. To save us.

But then I remember again I'm pregnant and I'm mad at myself for always forgetting that tiny little being growing inside of me. A lonely pair we make. What kind of piss-poor mother am I already? I sink further into Soda's side and will myself to want to be good. But in a matter of seconds I'm thinking...fuck that.

* * *

"How's the anti-depressant working for you Soda?" Dr. Fran's put a lot of stock in this medicine and I don't want to disappoint her with how awful it's been on me, but we've been working on being honest about things. So before I start saying everything's okay like I normally would, I pause and shut my eyes and take a deep breath. I then open my mouth and tell her I hate it. How it's making me feel tired and weird, like I'm a walking dead person with no spit in my mouth. She's nodding her head like this isn't news. And then I get really real.

"I don't even feel much like...you know." I can't look at Dr. Fran so I stare out the window at the November trees, now as naked as I feel in this room.

"You don't have the energy or interest for sex you mean?" she casually asks and I can't believe a woman her age has no qualms with talking so openly about it. I nod my head cause I'm too ashamed to voice my yes, that indeed my manhood's slowly dying as we speak.

"Those are common side effects," she assures me.

"Well I'm not gonna take 'em no more. I can't live like that." And I don't even think I can be honest with myself on this one, cause I was pushing Glory away before I ever took one pill.

"Soda," Dr. Fran takes her glasses off and I know she's getting ready to beg, "I want you to please keep taking them. Many of these effects will work themselves out after a few weeks. Please don't give up on them yet." Something in her voice almost has me convinced.

I haven't told nobody I'm on anything. Not Glory. Not even Darry. Once Darry left our sessions I finally admitted my depression to Dr. Fran. How low I'd gotten. The mood swings. The anxiety. The flashbacks that seemed so real. I came clean cause it scared me when Dr. Fran said my mother's issues were hereditary. And I can't be sick when this baby comes. That's all I'm living for these days.

"Don't worry, I'll keep takin 'em," I sigh and lean back in my chair, rub a hand down my face. What other choice do I have? For some reason I feel like talking today. "You know how you keep saying all that stuff about being open and honest?"

Dr. Fran puts her glasses back on and waits, with eyes a little wider I notice, urging me on. "Darry says he's gonna tell our little brother the truth. This weekend when he's home for Thanksgiving and our buddy's wedding."

I thought her smile would be bigger with that news, but I should have known her mind would be strictly on me. "I'm glad to hear it," she says like she truly means it, "that's going to help Darry tremendously, but what about you? Aren't you going to be a part of this conversation? You belong to that truth as much as Darry does."

"I don't want to be there for it," I say bluntly, as bluntly as I told Darry I didn't want any part. I don't care if I let Dr. Fran down, she can shake her head at me all she wants. But I notice she's not. I try and explain myself anyway. "I just...I can't watch Ponyboy's eyes...not when his golden image of our mother gets crushed."

"Ponyboy must be one special human being," she says like she's talking to herself. "I've never seen two brothers more protective than you all are with him."

I lean forward, elbows on her desk. I could try to describe him but I could never do him justice. "He's the best person I know."

* * *

The rain is hammering Tulsa this afternoon. All I can think about is poor Evie. She's gonna be pissed if there's a monsoon on her wedding night. I'm stopped at a red light so I start thinking about what I'm going to include in my toast. It's got to be the right amount of funny, not too sentimental but just enough. God I hope I don't fuck it up.

And there on the sidewalk a girl manages to draw my eye. She's fighting with her umbrella and the wind is catching it, and I can tell by her movements, how she's tugging and struggling that it's Patty. I feel my chest warm and a smile spread across my face. A breath of laughter creeps up when I watch a strong gust turn her bright red umbrella all the way inside out and she's left mad and soaked. She's walking away down the sidewalk now and I think about chasing her, just abandon my car and leave it running in the intersection. A horn blasts me back to reality and I start driving again, but slowly. I squint and try to find her once more on the way down the rainy street, but I've lost her in the crowd of damp people racing for dry cover.

* * *

"Hey, could you fasten this?" Gloria's words are harsh and I don't blame her. I've just turned her down again this afternoon. I work at her tiny clasp on her necklace, even run my fingers down her neck, hoping to pacify her a little. She's hurt I can tell. "You look beautiful tonight," I tell her as we hold eyes in the bathroom mirror. And she does. Gloria's looks are captivating. There's no denying that. She lets a smile break through. I knew she'd forgive me a little once I was dressed up in this tie. We're a nice looking pair when I get cleaned up. Looking at us now, I wonder if anyone at that wedding will be able to see all those other things we're missing.

 _"Gloria, listen, it's not you."_

 _"Oh fuck off Soda, don't start up with the whole 'it's not you, it's me' bullshit." She furiously knocks my hand off of her waist._

 _"No, I wasn't gonna say that. It's this medicine they've got me on." But Gloria won't stand for that either. They're all just excuses in her book. And she walks off to start getting ready, and I'm left standing in some of my guilt cause Gloria's exactly right. These are just excuses really. And I'm almost relieved how earlier today, I had no trouble at all getting turned on, when I jerked off to thoughts of Patty Campbell in her wet shirt._ _No problem whatsoever. The shadow of a smile races across my lips before I manage to hide it away._

* * *

"What a lovely ceremony," Lizzie Monroe says, more proper than anyone here talks in this VFW ballroom. Talk about easy on the eyes holy shit. Darry's outdone himself tonight but he's good at always playing it cool. So much so she's the one who's all over him. It's mind-blowing the high quality broads my brother's always been capable of reeling in.

The party's in high spirits, my speech went over well, Steve and Evie are the happiest I've ever seen them, Ponyboy's here to be a part of it all. The night's almost perfect...

Pony, sitting next to me at our reserved reception table, pulls his beer bottle from his mouth with a suctioned pop and slaps a hand down on my leg. He's staring straight ahead but leaning over to me and says in a low growl, "What the hell's Glory doing over at the bar?"

My heart sinks when I follow his glare and I find Gloria getting cozied up to some dick who's practically shoving a tongue in her ear. And she's the one leading it on. I know exactly what she's doing, just trying to get a rise out of me and I want to kill her for doing it here.

"You gonna let him get away with that?" Pony asks roughly, not believing I'm not bashing heads in already. And any other time that's exactly what I'd be doing. But tonight I just sit there in my medicine haze, and watch my pregnant wife cozy up to some other man across the room while my pride crumbles around me, and realize how far I've let myself go from who I am.

I can't make out much of the discussion that's swarming above me like buzzing killer bees. I do hear Darry's firm warning, "Pony we're at a wedding, sit your ass down. It ain't your fight anyway." But Pony's already half way across the dance floor before I know it, walking dangerous and shedding his coat and there's nothing we can do about him now.

* * *

"Shit Darry," Pony hisses at me when I pour water on his face in the back lot. Blood is gushing out of his nose and it's coming up out of his mouth too where he spits it away. "Are you sure that asshole didn't hit me with a hammer?"

"Nope, just a fist," Two-Bit tells him cheerily and we work on trying to look respectable again. Evie's not happy at all with us for fighting at her wedding and I feel bad I left Lizzie in there alone. I don't even want to think how Soda feels right now. He grabbed Gloria and left in the middle of the redneck brawl. I saw them out of the corner of my eye when I was pulling Steve's Uncle Tony off of Ponyboy's face and overheard them as they passed me.

 _"You always let your little brother fight your fights Soda?" Gloria's voice is cold ice._

 _"I'll start fightin' for you when you start actin' like a respectable wife, Gloria. Now get your ass in the car." Soda sounds like fire._

* * *

Can any event be normal for our crew? What a weekend it's been already. It's Saturday night and more shit's about to rain down. I'd told Soda a few days ago to join us for supper at six if he wants to be here when I tell Ponyboy. Of course he refused, still set against it, and hell after what happened with Gloria last night I don't expect to see him around these parts for a long time anyway. He's got his hands full over at that apartment I'd imagine.

So it's just the two of us eating leftover Thanksgiving food. I look at Pony with his two eyes shaded gray underneath them, darkened from the knock he took to his nose. He's laughing about it now, analyzing what he did wrong to allow his face an open shot for a right hook. I shake my head and tease him for being a lightweight, but Pony's as heavy as they come. I stare at my food and I wonder how I'm even going to start this.

"Pony," and that's all I can manage to get out so far. He looks up at me from cutting his turkey and he can tell right away something's bothering me.

"What is it Darry?"

I don't want him to panic so I'm quick to say, "Everything's fine, don't worry." I let out a heavy breath. "I just think it's time you knew everything that's been going on." His chewing slows to a crawl and he swallows hard.

The doorknob rattles and we both turn toward the back door. I'm shocked to see it open, and I smile with pure relief that Soda decided to show up after all.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	16. Chapter 16

**THE TRIP**

PART XVI

"Got plenty left. Everything's still warm," I tell Soda as he's shrugging off his raincoat, beads of water dripping down to linoleum from where it hangs. I sit on my urge to run over and swallow him in a hug, so thankful he came, that something, whatever it was changed his mind.

He nods at me, tired, no kind of expression, then heads to the stove to fill up a plate, stopping to give Pony's shoulder a squeeze on the way. "Sorry you had to go and get your face rearranged on account of little ole me."

Pony shrugs and breaks an embarrassed smile. "Man, that dude looked a lot smaller sittin' down," he jokes, his nose making him sound like he caught a cold, not just a right hook. "I didn't realize the size of his fist till it took up my entire face." A short, sharp laugh escapes me.

Soda leans in to check out this injured nose more closely and the creak of Pony's chair confesses his nervous shift away, afraid Soda might touch, not putting it past him.

But he doesn't. "Don't look broken though. It's still good and straight." Soda gives him an encouraging slap across his back and moves along.

As much as we'd like to ask questions about his strange relationship, what all went down last night after the wedding, we don't dare to. Not like Soda would answer us anyway. So we just watch him stabbing out a few green beans, carefully creating a pit in his mashed potatoes and filling it to its brim with the gravy Pony made from a dry mix packet.

"Turkey's in the fridge," I remember to tell him as he comes to the table with full hands, scooting his chair out with his foot.

"I don't want no meat." I make sure I'm right on what day this is and wonder what that's all about, but I don't have time to dissect it or to worry how his words snagged on the rough edges of his tone. Tonight we're here for Ponyboy.

I look across the table at our double black-eyed boxer who's looking back at me, his food barely touched and forgotten, waiting for what I was about to say before the disruption. "So, what you were gonna tell me Darry? What is it I need to know?" He props his elbows up on the table and with his mouth pressed against his folded hands, he's ready to listen to a story I never wanted him to hear.

* * *

I try and predict where Darry's gonna start telling it from, how he's gonna get our whole messy past out on the table and have it all make sense to Ponyboy. I keep my eyes on my older brother, wait for his mouth to open, watch the one who's always tried to bring order to our chaos, and I turn my fork upside down along my tongue, pressing its prongs harder and further down till it starts to hurt. Then push it a little further.

"Soda and me, we did a lot of lookin' at our pasts in his therapy." Darry pushes his chair back and tries to get comfortable, but that's never gonna happen. "Vietnam ain't the only reason Soda's got issues."

 _Really Darry? This is where we're launching from?_ Just like Darry to act like he ain't got no kind of issues at all. Only me, the fuckup.

"And what are those other reasons?" Pony asks low and slow, dragging his "and" overly long, like the way he's having to drag the story out of us, and his eyes shift back and forth between Darry and me.

I'm tired and this is taking too long, I pull out my fork, let my numbed tongue start moving again. "Darry and I both have issues," I slur, pointing my fork at Darry's surprised face, "with our childhood." The fork now makes its aim at Pony. "Cause Mom was real sick when you were little. And turns out I got some of that sickness in me."

Pony's hand goes over his heart and his voice is breathless. "My God Soda how sick are you? What do you got? I mean what are we talkin' about here?" Darry pulls his signature man-of-the-house move, throwing a hand up for silence and by that and his look alone he's always able to stop the insanity, rein Pony in before he rolls off into a panic, and I wonder just how much of Mom is running through Ponyboy.

"Whoah whoah hold up, we're not talkin' bout that kind of sick," Darry's voice is commanding calm. "We're talkin' mental issues. Nobody's dyin' here." Pony slumps boneless in his chair with a visible relief, and now that he's had his wits scared out of him, maybe everything else won't seem so bad. But I know that's wishful thinking. This is Pony we're talking about it. "Mom was sick in the head," Darry says bluntly.

"What are y'all tryin' to tell me? Mom sure as hell didn't seem crazy to me," Pony says, a fighting bite already starting to form around his words and I wouldn't be surprised if he walks out before we ever get to the real shit. He ain't gonna have nobody talking about his Momma. Not even us.

"Pony she got better," I say softly to try and soften him. "By the time you was four or so she was the Mom you know and love. And man she was...well she was great." I've been where Pony is, not wanting anything bad to touch her. Darry, not so much.

Pony's eased up a little and at least he's still here, wanting a few more pieces of the puzzle. "What mental issues did she have?"

"It started when you were born, she had the," Darry stops and looks to me, "what was it Soda? That word for baby blues? What some women get after they have.."

"Postpartum depression," Pony interrupts and Darry's snap and finger point tells him he's right. Pony would know the scientific term, and things are starting to make a little more sense to him. He even jokes, "Of course I'd be the one to give her postpartum depression," and his goofy smile starts fading when we don't smile back. We just sit there till the awful quiet beats down with brutal fists. And my stomach twists cause this is it. All the secrets, all that truth's about to spill out and light this house on fire. I can only look at Darry whose eyes are zeroed in on Pony, like they're trying to hold him up for what he's about to hear.

" _You_ didn't give it to her." Darry's sentence is loaded and heavy and only I can feel its weight. Pony's wheels are turning but I know he'll never understand the meaning unless one of us says the actual words. Darry brings his hands together, his fingers to his lips. And on the shaky breath he blows between them he whispers to himself, "This is harder than I thought."

I wince at Darry's struggle, and I want to protect him more than even Pony right now, my older, much stronger brother who for this moment is nine again, feeling every single sting all over his body, left there by the raging palms of two desperate and psychotic hands.

"God Darry I was only kiddin'. I know it really wasn't _my fault_ ," Pony explains, understandably confused by this tilted conversation.

For Darry now, there's nowhere to go but forward. "No, _your_ birth wasn't the cause of her depression. It was the baby that she lost." Pony doesn't have time to register that before Darry's telling him, "You had a twin brother who died at birth Pony."

Time seems to stand still, at least in our little kitchen. I watch Pony sink into this news, his eyes looking more green against the dark bruises below them. And maybe for the first time ever, mom's lost baby has suddenly become my lost brother, and I wonder what we'd be with a fourth. All the different roads our story would've taken.

I'm brought back by Darry clearing his throat and going further. "Of course she was grievin', and she still managed for a little while, but she just couldn't shake it. She started drinkin' and her depression just kept gettin' worse till she wasn't even functionin' really. She couldn't even take care of you. Of us." I watch the knife in Pony's gut get turned a little more with each of Darry's real and honest words. "She was out of her mind Pony."

I slide my hand across the table and rest it on Pony's wrist, then quietly say, "Darry, let's slow down. I think he might be stuck way back at 'you had a twin'." Darry nods and takes a drink of his Dr. Pepper. "Pony, you alright?"

"I just can't believe it," he whispers, then his stunned face turns to disgust. "Why the hell didn't anybody tell me?"

"Mom didn't want you to know," Darry says, flat and quick to try and extinguish Pony's sparking anger before it fully lights.

But Pony's heating up and really taking Darry on, his voice expanding. "After all these years she's been gone and you never once thought I might need to know this? About a twin, my own past, Mom going full blown psycho?" I draw my hand back to my side of the table and sit up straighter, watch Darry's eyes drop to the napkin he's been messing with while he just sits and takes Pony's verbal beating. "Did it just slip your mind Darry? Or maybe you thought I couldn't handle it. Pony's too weak, ain't that right? You.."

"Hey," I cut in sharp, bringing a firmness to my voice. "Cool it Pony. Darry's had it rough now. Don't you take this out on him." I throw a hard glare and now it's Pony's turn to drop eyes and once he does I can ease up on him. My voice smooths. "Pony, I know it's a lot to take in and you tend to wanna lash out. I get that, man. But Darry's the wrong person. You have no idea all he's been through. And God he's been takin' care of you for more years than you ever thought."

And all this is exactly the reason I drove over here tonight through the punishing rain. For Darry.

* * *

I mold my backpack into some form of a pillow and shove it behind my head against the bus seat, try and make the ride back to school somewhat decent. I'm thankful it's not that crowded and I don't have to share my space with some big mouthed talker or worse, some creepy guy who doesn't say anything at all. I yank the bill of my baseball cap down, fold my arms against my chest and rest my eyes, exhausted from the long, late night we had that stretched all the way to morning. What is it with us and Thanksgiving weekends? Jesus.

Weird what flashes through your mind when you're given a sudden shock. The second Darry told me, all I could think of was a memory, a long ago conversation with my father, its meaning lost on me at the time...

 _I can tell by how his cigarette hangs easy from the corner of his lips that Dad's in a good mood, happy and relaxed and he turns up the radio to confirm it. Elvis is on and we get in our usual friendly disagreement. I think he's great and Dad's unimpressed. "Aw that Elvis ain't got 'nuff soul for a cool cat like me Ponyboy," he teases in his slow swampy drawl, tapping his smoke over the truck's ashtray._

 _I barely chuckle at his crazy statement and at eleven I'm positive my dad doesn't know the meaning of cool. I turn from the passenger window to watch him shaking his head at every fact I list off, all the reasons Elvis is better, a different kind of notch above his favorite kings and queens of the rhythm and blues. I catch his infectious grin as he's shooting down my taste in music and I know I'll never win, turn back to the scenery, the ghetto side of town as we make our way to the junkyard. I remember a magazine I read and think of something that might change his mind._

 _"Dad, Elvis is from the Deep South like you. Now how can_ _you_ _not like someone born in Mississippi?"_

 _"Mis'sipp? You think I care 'bout an ole hound dog from Mis'sipp?" He's now almost cracking up at himself and I give up and roll my eyes at his poor pronunciation skills, turn back to the old weathered shacks we pass. A ragged looking lady's out on her porch, a baby on each hip. Reminds me of something else from that article. I figure Dad won't care at all but I say it anyway._

 _"Did you know Elvis had a twin brother? Turns out he was born still though. Dead at birth," I report it like it's more of an interesting fact than some tragic event._

 _Although gentle, I'm startled when Dad cups his hand on the back of my neck. "No I didn't know that Pony," and I notice how quickly his tone has dropped all of its joking inflections. "That's an awful sad thing to hear. I feel sorry for his momma. And for Elvis." I'm almost too confused to be touched by the comfort and sympathy sitting in his voice. Almost. "Well then I'm a fan of Elvis Presley too," he announces loudly, like it's been made official, notarized and proclaimed right out of our truck windows and spreading all throughout a shining America._

 _I stare dumbfounded at who I think is surely the most eccentric father anyone's ever had, maybe even stranger than Sodapop, and I watch a sly smile slowly creep in as he yells from a crooked mouth, his cigarette flopping. "Turn that music up boy. We 'bout to get awl shook up in this truck right now."_

 _I reach for the volume and match his accent best I can, "'Bout time you come to a lick of sense."_

I can still hear his laugh ringing out. There was so much love in his deep, heartfelt reaction that day. And now I understand.

Mom. I still can't wrap my head around the mother Darry described. I'm not able to imagine her that way. And yet I can't stop trying to visualize how it all played out. I guess I'll have to think of her as two different people. The mother who sat beside me at the piano guiding my fingers across the keys, laughing and so affectionate, always pulling me close. And the ill one that my brothers lived with. But I had been there too. I saw her in her sickness. There has to be a tiny part of me that remembers something.

Soda. His problems seem more ingrained in him now, atoms of his fiber. Like they just might eat him alive. And Darry. I cringe at how I yelled at him last night. And hell the countless times I've gone after him, the punk I used to be and sometimes still am. After all he's done for me. Soda told me everything, answered every question I had when Darry gave in at two and dragged himself to bed. With Dad at work and Mom so lost, Darry was essentially raising us back then too. As just a little boy. But little is something he never got to be. I hurt for him. I hurt for Dad and Mom and Soda. All of them.

I'm glad I now know. Earlier today when Darry dropped me off, he said he was sorry he'd kept it from me, when I should be the one apologizing. He told me that he wanted, no he _needed_ me to know all this now so I could see it more clearly, what we're fighting when it comes to Soda; the genetics, the childhood and the war that live inside him. And when he explained that I was meant to fully be a piece in Soda's healing and even in his own, I felt a guttural strength inside me, stirring to answer my brother's call.

But as I'm drowning in a sea of family secrets, for me it's all coming back to this. I had a twin. A _twin_. Darry said identical too. I stared at myself in the mirror today and beyond my bruises I saw him. How can you ache for someone you never knew? But I must've known him a little while, in the sense we shared the most intimate of spaces. And I think about the exact moment his life gave out beside me. Did I somehow feel the departing of his soul? Have I always carried that loss inside me? My first breath and in the cries that followed, there had to be some kind of true sorrow in them, a longing for the one who was suddenly taken from me, who'd been my warmth and comfort tucked in a nine month cocoon. I did know him. I do know him. I've known him all my life.

Is anything in life as it seems? I whip off my hat and try to think of something pure but can't. I run both hands through my messy hair, tug.

 _Oh my God my mother used to be insane._

* * *

Once Dr. Fran gets settled at her desk, once I tell her as she's searching for her glasses that she's wearing them on her head, we're ready to begin. "It's always good to see you Soda," she says so warmly that I believe her. "I feel like our schedule gets so messed up with all the holidays, I'm almost relieved when they're over. Happy New Year by the way."

"Yeah thanks, you too. 1971. Big year comin' up," I say, not believing I'm about to be some fucked up version of a father.

"Did you and your family have a good Christmas?" She pops the top of her pen.

I knew she would ask me. I paste on a smile and say, "It was okay."

 _"Soda, you okay in there?" Glory sounds muffled from behind the door and the music from the Christmas show on tv drifts through the cracks._

 _"I'll be fine. Just give me a sec," I call out, head hanging over the toilet, and I notice its water slightly shiver, the tiniest vibration from the sound waves of my voice. My knees and shins hurt from being on this tile floor so long. I hear Darry and Pony out there in the living room discussing me, concerned of course. I'm ruining Christmas Eve. Gloria's walked away thank God, not to join my brothers, but probably out to the porch to be alone. Sick of all my shit._

 _I take a long breath through my nose and think I've pulled it together till I hear Darry say, "Pony I don't know, I gave him the knife to slice the roast and he started backin' away, looked like he was about to throw up."_

 _Pony's obviously baffled. "But he's always loved pot roast."_

 _I picture the meat and vomit all over again._

I haven't heard what Dr. Fran's been saying to me and I don't care. I interrupt her. "I lied. Just now. Christmas wasn't okay."

There's no response from Dr. Fran. She's always dead silent when I start to open up. Like she's getting out of my way.

"I was sick. All of a sudden it's gotten to where I can't hardly look at meat no more." I let her process what's probably my millionth odd admission to her and wait to see if she can figure that one out. But I already have.

She takes a stab at it. "Now that we've brought up your childhood, could it be you're associating meat with your mother's strict rule? Didn't she force it back up if you ate some on a Friday during Lent?"

"Oh it ain't just Lent. We're old school. Any Friday. All year long." I feel myself tighten up when I sense someone attacking Mom's faith. My faith.

 _"Am I goin' straight to Hell Momma?" The thought turns my stomach more than the syrup ever will and I watch her pour it, thick on the spoon. I don't have time to ask again before she's waiting for my mouth to open to take it all down and I gag at the vile taste but still lick all around my lips, making sure I get every drop, making sure my body will get rid of all the sin in my stomach. I'm now desperate and choked by my tears. "Momma am I? I don't wanna go down there and burn. Please please I don't wanna go."_

 _Both her voice and her hand on my cheek are soothing . "Shhh, Soda baby don't talk like that. You're never ever goin' to Hell. I promise." She holds me and I'm loved and forgiven and calm, until the violent cramps set in._

Lord knows she became excessive. Hell, cruel's what it was. I know that. But in her way she was saving me. And I still carry some of her beliefs. I'm short with Dr. Fran. "I never had a problem with that rule. It ain't that."

If she can tell I'm ticked, she doesn't let it show. She leans closer. "Could it possibly have to do with a war experience?" I say nothing. Grip the arms of my chair. I'm begging my mouth to move. Silently begging her to read all of me, even while I'm hiding from the story. "Are you having some uncomfortable memories?" I stare so hard into her eyes I think I just climbed in them.

 _Nolan's giving our new guy all the usual shit. Every virgin Tiger gets the talk. God I remember mine. The shivers up my spine when I realized how this thing operates. I don't even recognize that kid I was, before my first cherry popping takedown._

 _T_ _he sun feels good after being rained on all night and I take off my shirt to soak it up. Light up a smoke. We're all glad to catch a breath in the middle of a patrol. Bring on a new member while an old one helicopters out of this hell. I barely listen to Nolan going on and on while I restock, reload, reset. I catch my name in the conversation. "They're on us all the time to up the body count. So if you're into killing, this is your kind of place, ain't that right Curtis? How many ears you got this week?"_

 _I just shake my head and can't help the small laugh under my breath. A scuffle starts breaking out between Harper and Reed and that ex convict from Phoenix, and Nolan heads off to watch the entertainment. Greer, fully jacked up on speed, yells out "Hot damn it's about to get all Lord of the Flies up in this motherfuckin' shithole." Greer's our medic._

 _I walk over to really set the new kid straight. He looks tough, capable, but nobody's mentally ready for what they're about to witness in our platoon. "Hey man, just stay low your first week and keep your mouth shut. You'll be fine." He nods and looks thankful for the advice. I slap at a bug on my shoulder and think to add, "I mean, really keep your mouth shut. They don't take too well to tattle tales. You get what I'm sayin'?" Best advice I can give him and start to walk away._

 _"Hey, was he serious," he calls after me in a Jersey accent, "about the ears?"_

 _I go back over, scratch the bites on the back of my neck . "It's how they want us to keep track of our count. Turn'em in at the end of the patrol and the guy with the most wins a six pack of beer." His face pales. I try and lighten things up. Give him a grin. "It's warm as piss but it's beer right?" He's not looking too good. So I bend down and talk low. "Look, it gets easy. Too easy really. You pull it out a little and slice. You wanna go back and forth real quick. Just like cuttin' meat off the bone."_

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton

 _I know. I know. I know._


	17. Chapter 17

**THE TRIP**

PART XVII

"Soda, would you like to tell me what you're remembering right now?"

The smell of death and napalm choke me, even after I've opened my eyes. My silence gnaws a hole between us but it doesn't stop Dr. Fran from edging closer, clearing the wide gap.

"I know you still aren't attending your group meetings Sodapop." It doesn't matter that there's no judgment in her voice, I immediately become small, some bad little kid. "You could go back and try it again. Listen in and maybe you'll find a group who's accepting. And able to hold all those disturbing memories you need to let go of." She tucks some fallen hair behind her ear.

I manage to shake my head no, cast my eyes down, so far down.

"Can you try and explain your feelings Soda, give me a reason why you choose not to share your stories with other soldiers?" Pain's got me held at gunpoint now, the cold steel barrel hard against my cheek that forces my mouth to move. I'm so ashamed of the small shake in my voice, the quickest quiver in my lip.

"Cause…well," and I feel the noose grow tighter around my throat, "I guess it ain't _their_ forgiveness I'm lookin' for is it?"

* * *

Feels like I went from barely showing to huge in a matter of days. Thank God I don't have stretch marks though. Or a fat face. I couldn't handle that. Maybe there's hope I'll get back to normal after this. I stare at my body now like it's an oddity.

It's one thing to feel it, that topsy turvy sensation, but there's something alien about actually _seeing_ your stomach shifting around when the baby decides to switch positions and get comfortable. Or to find the projection of a tiny foot or elbow poking your skin out while you're sprawled on the couch watching Days of Our Lives.

Of course Soda's entertained by it, his amazed reactions solidifying my feeling that I've become nothing more than his own personal sideshow attraction.

"Are you kiddin' me?" he shouts out with one of his earth shattering smiles. "I've seen a whole helluva lot Glory, but that's about the craziest damn thing I've ever seen in my life." He stares in disbelief at what seems to be an arm moving slow underneath my stretched flesh, and Soda's pointing at it like it's not my body anymore.

But he loves it. To touch me. It. He's wrapped up with what's inside. He's Soda. It's probably the only thing he loves right now. I found that out the night of Steve and Evie's wedding.

* * *

"So when's that baby comin' anyway?" I'm eyeing Soda while I chalk up my pool cue, noticing every woman in the place is trying to steal a glance at Tulsa's own version of a movie star. I got used to that a long time ago. "Evie wanted me to ask." Not that I don't have an interest in my best friend becoming a dad, but I'm not too hung up on stuff like due dates.

I watch Soda's eyes get a little more lively now whenever he talks about his kid on the way, and it's then when he almost looks like he did before the war. "Man, next month if you can believe it." He's grinning while he makes his shot, perfectly executed despite his obvious lack of concentration now.

He stands back up, returning to that casual stance of his, always comfortable in his skin wherever he happens to be, never acknowledging the countless hungry stares that follow. It's always been this way for him. It's all he's known. "It's finally feelin' real ya know?"

"Oh it's real alright," I tell him with a laugh, and lean against the wall and thank the Lord above Evie doesn't have baby fever yet.

Soda stops talking and his head's back in the game. He circles the table prowling, calculating his next move, approaching his decision and goes in for the kill, his stick poised between two fingers firing against the white ball with a deadly force, kicking back the minuscule explosion of a blue chalk mist. And his left-arm aim sends yellow and blue solids both hurling scared into their pockets. White ball's spinning smooth now, fleeing the violent scene it caused in the far right corner, and tonight I don't stand a chance against Soda when he's in the zone like this.

Still in cocked and ready position his eyes flicker up at me, their sudden intensity lighted by the golden halo of a hanging Budweiser lamp. "God Stevie I _can_ _not_ fuck this up."

* * *

"You talk to Po-Boy lately?" I ask my brother as I sit down on the floor and hand over the Phillips. His answer's interrupted though by a string of curses when he drops a screw. I keep the two pieces of wood tight and lined up best I can while Darry searches the floor on his hands and knees. "You need your damn glasses," I tell him for the billionth time in our lives and he ignores me like always.

"Haven't heard from him in the past couple weeks," Darry says about Pony, sounding far away now, stretched out flat on his stomach, his head underneath the bed. "He's swamped with tests and papers and tryin' to get all his requirements in for med school." I shake my head, not believing Pony's really going through with it. "Here it is," Darry announces, grunting when he pops back up with the screw, a black lace bra and a couple of petrified Cheetos.

We spend the late afternoon together on the floor, side by side building, mostly silent. We've always worked well together, the two of us. Darry's the mastermind and I'm pretty good and quick with my hands. "Why the hell does he want to do that?" I ask, picking up the conversation from fifteen minutes ago.

"Don't know but he's pretty set on it, got a great letter of recommendation from Dr. Lyndon out at the club. He was always requesting Pony to be his caddy." Pony's summer job suddenly makes sense to me now, and I wouldn't be surprised if he won over every member he came in contact with. That's just the kind of person Ponyboy is.

Darry goes on as he's squinting to see the next hole. "I asked him when he was last home though, 'You do realize you have to cut into cadavers right? Cadavers are _real_ dead people Ponyboy, like they used to be livin' and breathin' ya know.' He just gave me that look. You know the one. Like I was the dumbest person he's ever come across in his smartass life."

I guess then I won't be the only brother who cuts into people. Darry grabs for the last screw from the envelope he brought over, completely unaware of the what's taking place inside of me. He could be talking still but I wouldn't know. A brick drops low in my gut. My blood rushes and my heart starts pounding hard. I watch Darry spinning the screwdriver through a haze, the air buzzing heavy around me. And I have this urge to explode and tell my big brother everything. I want Darry to hear every wicked part and then pull me out of this scalding hellfire but I know he can't. He wouldn't. Not if he knew it all.

I imagine myself reaching out and yanking him around, here in the middle of mine and Glory's shitty bedroom. I see it all, me kneeling in front of him, grabbing his face with both hands so he has to look at me, so his blue eyes see me in all my sins. I won't let him turn away from it. I'll pull and tug him into me while I let the vile words bleed out.

I imagine his eyes widening with shock, then narrowing in with their shame when I tell him how I took a knife to human flesh. I want him to know that I heard the cries of every person who got dragged away. That maybe sometimes I did the dragging?

 _I smoke him out of his hole. Find that fucker who wouldn't think twice to throw my head up on a stake. He's beggin' real nice for me now._ " _Open your mouth," I say in a dead calm whisper and ease the gun in, "yeah, just like that."_

I want Darry to spit on me, kick me while I cry out and beg for him to save me. But none of that's going to happen and I know I'm shaking where I sit 'cause I'll never be able to show him who his little brother really is. All I can do is stare at the healed cigarette burns, now discolored patches I left on my wrist in the facility. An entire night I spent tied down like the mental patient I really am. Restrained like I should be.

"Soda? Soda it's done."

 _It is done. It is done._

The moment's passed and I look up slowly at Darry now standing high above, and I see my father when he stares down at me. "You okay?" He throws me a smile and a hand and pulls me up. "Looks pretty good huh?" he says with pride, admiring Pony's old crib that we both put back together.

* * *

"Dammit Soda Curtis, you piece of miserable fucking shit," I scream to the universe and to the torn, stained upholstery of my car, racing to get home in a blind rage. I forget I can't physically do what used to come easy for me, way past my due date, and I take the building's stairs slower than I'd like, breathing heavy by the time I make it to our door. I throw it open. He hasn't bothered to lock it. Or maybe I forgot to when I raced out of it an hour ago looking high and low for his cheating ass.

I hear his muffled conversation in the kitchen, the bastard. He's on the phone and stops short his quiet conversation when he sees me rounding the corner, holding the damning slip of paper high in the air. And he has the audacity to look at me confused, eyebrows raised. I don't hesitate to rip the phone from his hand and put it to my ear. "Who the hell is this?" I sharpen every word, expecting some dirty slut to answer back.

"I'll tell you who the _hell_ this is Gloria," and I recognize that deep hard voice immediately. While I appreciate that Darry's always down for a good fight at any given moment, right now he ain't got nothing on me.

"Little bro's gonna have to call you back Darry," and I hang up the phone. Three times hard.

Soda's looking at me like I've lost my mind, holding his hands up tentatively. As if he's trying to coax the wild animal I am right now. "Glory, easy. Just calm down darlin'," and he's using that voice he's got, but there's a pull on his lips that I could never miss. The tiniest devilish spark in his eye like he's enjoying what's in front of him, the psychotic side of me.

I hold the wrinkled, torn out paper in front of his poker face, the scribbled phone number I found in the wallet he left behind today, signed Ami, complete with a drawn heart to dot the i. "Who's Ami?" I ask and the calmer he is the crazier I go.

"Nobody, " he answers, his nonchalance well practiced. "Some girl at Pauly's a month or so ago. She slipped me her number even after I said I was married. I took it just to get her to leave and forgot to throw it away." He almost sounds convincing, but I'm too far in this to reverse; I never reverse. And he should never accept some whore's number. Under any circumstance.

"Who were you with that night? Steve?" And I'm sounding like every other man's old lady in this entire paper thin walled, ratty ass apartment complex.

He nods his head, talking that lazy southern like nothing's gonna get him rattled. "Prob'ly...yeah definitely, we played pool," and I pick up the phone and hand it to him, and rein in my voice to sound more in control.

"Call Steve then. I wanna hear it from him. How you told _Ami With a Hearted I_ you were married and sent her on her way."

A slow and baiting smile is his invitation to play. "You really want me to call Steve and drag him into this little domestic mess of ours?"

"Soda. Do it." I stand firm, but start to question every thought I've ever had. I feel nervous when he actually starts to dial Steve's number with a confident finger.

I don't know what to believe. I don't know who I am right now. Am I just a hormonal lunatic or am I fighting for what's mine? I bring a hand up to my blazing forehead. Then just like that I surrender when I press the hook on the phone cradle, disconnecting the call right as Steve questions 'Hello?'.

He won. And I'm reminded again who really has the control.

But today it feels wrong that I should feel safe at all trapped inside Soda's stronghold. Cause I've learned already it was never me he was promising to hunt. Apart from his child I carry, what am I to him?

I won't let that hurt and humiliation in just yet. I still have needs and something about this has Soda finally fired up again after being cold for so long. And I've never wanted him more.

We both know I'll end up calling that girl myself and I know what I'll probably find when I do, but I let him grab me from behind when I start to walk away. I let his hand slip deep inside my panties like it's all his, the space between my legs. I'm worked up and wet with jealousy alone and I don't know why the thought of him fucking someone else is making me feel all kinds of things. His lips graze the side of my neck, close and dangerous now against my ear. He jerks me back tighter against him and whispers rough the way I like, "What am I gonna do with you huh?" So easily he can get me eating out of his hand. I hate him and I want him exactly like this.

He knows what to do with me when he lures me to bed and takes all of me inside his warped seduction and my orgasm is so intense, too intense that spasms of painful cramping fire up in waves across my abdomen soon after. My knees draw in reflexively, my feet caught by our tangled fitted sheet. I fold into myself whimpering, cradle my hard and tightening stomach and for one split second wonder dumbly if it's time for me to start my period.

Then I remember. Wait. I'm pregnant.

* * *

A March rain pelts the windows and I wish Lizzie could've come over. Nights like this are meant to be spent in bed. I stare off in space just imagining what all we could be doing right now between the sheets. Liz might be high society but when it's just us.. well, I like holding her secrets. That side of her is for me alone. Tonight though she's not feeling well so I'm on the couch with a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Not my favorite, but Pony had to have it on his last break.

It's the worst kind of night to be dateless. No games on. My only choice of sitcoms are Bewitched and Mary Tyler Moore. Samantha versus Mary. They're both pretty hot. After the weighing of pros and cons I'll stick with Mary. She's not a witch plus we go way back to the old Dick Van Dyke days. I like familiar. And she has a cute smile. I slide my glasses on and lean back, prop my bare feet on the coffee table.

The house is lonely. A breeze sends the den curtains dancing around the open window. I remember my dad hanging those. A distant rumble of thunder is low and long.

The phone rings right when Mary's just about to get Lou his job back for him, and I walk fast to answer, hoping it's someone who'll be quick.

"Hello," I answer and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

"Hey it's me." In three words I can tell he sounds different. I tense up.

"I'm at the hospital. Gloria, she's in labor man. They just rolled her back. I'm at Hillcrest in the fourth floor waiting room."

The once dull night takes on the electric charge of change, and I know nothing will ever be the same again. "On my way," I tell my little brother, my childhood.

My grin is a mile wide when I catch all the nerves and all the excitement wrapped around his words. "It's time Darry, my baby's comin'."

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	18. Chapter 18

_I don't know who was in labor more. Gloria with her baby, or me with this chapter._

 **THE TRIP**

PART XVIII

Nobody gives you the truth. Yet another way women fail each other. I naively thought labor would be like the roughest cramps. But here I am struggling to breathe, writhing on sweat soaked hospital sheets and drowning in contractions. Their ebb and flow show no mercy, sucking me in and out, and each time I'm dragged beneath, the glassy surface is harder to reach and I'm lost in waters too deep to even think of looking up.

"Mrs. Curtis, you still have time to change your mind," and I wonder who the hell is Mrs. Curtis, while my nurse tries to push the narcotics that promise a little bit of ease in a ruthless labor. She looks at me struggling in all my misery with narrowed eyes that scream I told you so.

"I can't…." I croak with small sounding defiance, and I'm not only battling the violence of birth but always the trapping claws of my addiction; I guess I'll spend the rest of my life running. Not even Soda, who was fighting his own war in the treatment center, knows what I went through giving it all up the second I even had an inkling I might be pregnant. I'll be damned if ever again I suffer the torment of quitting.

Why won't they listen...

 _"She said she don't want no drugs," Soda's charms vanish in a blink whenever he's tested, and he snaps at the on-call doctor when my refusal seems to go unheard yet again. I've all but told them to go to hell every time they keep trying to juice me up and finally someone listens only to a demanding husband after ignoring the one in the room that matters most._

I breathe a shaky exhale in the small break between contractions, a once cold wash cloth slides down warm and damp, covering my eyes that sting with fever and it's now that I wish for Soda.

 _"I don't know what's wrong with this new crop of young mothers," Jolene sounds appalled as we wipe down the bar for close, "thinking they want their men in the delivery room with 'em. Have you heard about this?" I look up from stacking the ashtrays at the two older women I work with._

 _"Uh uh, no way in hell," Rose chimes in while running her broom, snapping the tiniest sliver of pink Dentyne gum between her tongue and teeth. "_ _Probably started up out there in crazy California._ _West coast wackos, every last one of 'em."_

 _Jolene finishes this outdated rant with something I can actually understand. "Honey," she calls me in a voice made rough by about fifty harsh years, "don't you ever let that handsome man of yours see what really goes on, or he won't never wanna pay you a visit down there again."_

So I was kind of relieved to see Soda go when, once the real show kicked in, he was sent packing. The minute the cruel and grinding pain stretched its slobbered jaws and snatched me up. "I'll call your mom," he told me quick with worry and he didn't sound like Soda at all.

Lost too deep in agony, I couldn't open my eyes to see him there, but his image from before still burned behind my eyelids squeezed shut; his shirt all wrinkled, hair still unruly from the wild afternoon we shared, the few marks I'd left forming little purple bruises on his neck and collarbone. I felt a squeeze on my hand that I returned as they rolled me to delivery before the nurses shooed him away.

Now that the crushing labor has my pelvic bones bending and bowing as nature intended them, opening up to usher life through, I arch against the table, throw back my head and scream out under the harsh white lights.

I scream for Soda.

* * *

Tonight's rainstorm already moved through and I jog across the parking lot, its wet surface shiny with reflections of the neon hospital sign and the red glow of brake lights, reminding me of the last time we were here. I eye the emergency entrance when I pass it for the main lobby doors, and I catch the ghostlike image that plays out in the very spot it happened. Our car squealing to a stop beside the parked ambulances waiting stoic for their calls. I can still see that panic in Ponyboy's eyes before he shot out ahead of us while Steve and I fought to bring in a crazed and drugged out Soda, and I shake my head against the scene, all that sick despair. I remind myself tonight is different. Tonight I'm here for something else. Thank you God.

Growing impatient, at the ding of the fourth floor I slip sideways through elevator doors that haven't had time to fully open and my eyes sweep the waiting room for my brother. But of course I don't find him in any of the seats. Why would I expect Soda to be sitting at a time like this? Or any time for that matter. I turn to check the vending and coffee machines when a loud "Darry" erupts from behind me, and there he is at the wall of pay phones, signaling me with a wave and hanging up the receiver he's just had cradled between his ear and shoulder.

I wonder why his clothes look like they've already been slept in as we walk toward each other. In fact everything about him is a sloppy mess. "You holdin' up alright?" I ask from a distance, not believing he's about to be a father; the kid who cried then kicked me when I told him Santa was Dad, the boy who pissed the bed 'til he was four, the one who wrote Aunt Mabel begging her to _please send my Momma home_. "Who were you callin'?"

We slap our right hands then grasp, pulling each other close so that our opposite shoulders come together briefly, the way we always do when it's been a few days since we've seen each other. "I was talkin' to Steve but Evie grabbed the phone. She's been askin' me all kinds of shit I can't answer." He's pumped up and nervous. I can tell. "Tried to reach Ponyboy but they said he was out."

I stuff my keys in my pocket and ask him, "So how's Gloria? Is she in a lot of pain, she doin' okay?" All of a sudden my sister-in-law is extremely important to me. I need her to be alright. My question and concern for her are genuine.

"She wasn't doin' too good when they took her away to the birthin' room. God she was hurtin' awful bad." He folds his arms and breathes a heavy sigh. "Gloria's doin' it natural man, said she didn't want no drugs."

My eyes widen and I stop myself before I ask if she's insane. Then it dawns on me why she'd refuse. "Glory's tough, Soda. She's gonna be fine. So is the baby." He nods his head in agreement and smiles his appreciation.

I head to the rows of seats where he follows, drop into a plastic chair but Soda won't sit down, choosing to stand in front of me instead, his hands pocketed. I ask him how it all went down, how they knew it was time.

He runs a hand through his hair and stares at the ground as he's thinking back. "We were just...I don't know, layin' around in bed 'n stuff and the pains started. She stood up to walk to the bathroom, next thing I know there's a little puddle on the floor." He looks up at me and he's trying to fight a smile. "Hell I thought maybe she had an accident ya know, and I asked if she'd gone and wet herself. She got all heated at me and said her water broke." Soda falls down in the seat across from mine."I didn't know that's what happens, did you?"

I chuckle a little, watching my brother out of his element. Not that it's mine either, but I do know a little bit, like the water. "Yeah, I 'member Mom's water breakin' with Pony. What was I, six? I know I was pretty disturbed by it."

A cold chill surges through me and I try and erase the flashback of what came soon after. The heavy flow of blood that poured down her legs and pooled on our kitchen floor, and now I know her body was ridding the one that didn't make it, dragging Ponyboy out with him in the process; too early. Dad would later tell me we were lucky. We could've lost all three. I close my eyes to shut out the haunting memory.

"Wonder what's happenin' back there, wonder if it'll be born soon," Soda's mostly talking to himself, and all his nervous tics are firing up.

Another expectant father overhears him, the guy who looks like he's set up shop for days in his little corner of the room, candy wrappers and empty coke cans stuffed in his own makeshift Kentucky Fried Chicken trash bucket. His eyes are bloodshot tired. "To answer your question, no. It won't be born soon. Take it from me. I've been here eight hours." He looks old compared to Soda. I stifle a yawn just hearing how long our night's fixing to be.

Soda jumps up. "I gotta have somethin' to do. Want me to getcha some coffee Dar?" Before I can answer yes he's checking out the woman getting off the elevator. "Uh oh, here comes Glory's mom. Get ready for your ear to be talked off," he warns under his breath without moving his lips. Then he calls out across the room, "Mrs. Grey, over here," and about a dozen people are now looking over at Soda and all his commotion.

For years without a mom, we're not that used to having one around. With a very attractive Mrs. Grey on the way over already admonishing, "How many times do I have to tell you to call me Georgia?", high heels clicking fast and furious, I subtly tell Soda to try and smooth down his crazy hair and button up the top buttons of his shirt. "For God's sake Soda cover up them scratches and hickeys. No mother wants to see that shit."

* * *

Too weak for screaming now, I feel myself shutting down, my mind trying desperately to escape all this.

"Soda...Soda,"I whisper repeatedly to myself like some mantra, my head tossing from side to side until gloved fingers hold my jaw to still it. Ice chips wet my cracking lips and I whimper but open my mouth to let them in while the nurse apologizes and explains why I can't have anything to drink.

The reprieve is cut short when I feel the steamrolling pressure return, and I wouldn't be able to stop this urge to bear down against it, even if I tried. "Time to push again honey, you're almost there," encourages the motherly ice chip nurse. And at least I'm able to meet my contractions now with some aggression, unlike the passive hours before I had to endure, nothing to do but lie there and take it. I'm too much of a fighter for that.

Instead of the bed rails I grab my trembling thighs, spread apart with feet pressed on stirrups. I claw my legs, pinch, dig my nails into skin as some kind of distraction from the onslaught. The head is coming. It's stretching me in half and I know now the dreaded ring of fire is real. A red hot poker might as well be opening me up wider, burning with the stretch and I shout a cry for mercy. "The head's out," the doctor announces like I didn't just feel every stinging millimeter that ravaged my vagina, "give me just a couple more pushes now."

I think about every mother from the beginning of time, the maternal strength that keeps this whole life thing going. Some ancient part of me climbs on the backbone of grit and power from all those women that've gone before. I clench my teeth, growling my strain as I work to give it my all. Every cell, every atom of my body was prepared and made for this. It's not much longer before shoulders are squeezing through and slippery limbs are falling out into doctor's hands. In the fraction of a baby's breath I've soared over the vast gulf that separates and divides us all, blazing a path I can never go back on; I would never want to. I've become one of them. A mother.

"It's a boy," rings out in heavenly herald, my baby's held high for me to see and my sobs and laughter are one and the same. He's gorgeous and flailing and oh so angry, strong in his cries and I want him, my eyes track him everywhere he's taken, to be measured and weighed and cleaned. I hardly feel the remaining contractions and the doctor's hands that knead my abdomen, helping to push out the life-giving placenta. I barely wince when I'm sewn back together. There'll be time for sore later. Right now I'm being swept away by the oldest, most primal love I never knew but have always heard about, and I've fallen head over heels for the eight pound, one ounce beautiful boy I've been waiting for all my life.

* * *

 _It's a boy. Isn't that what the doctor said? Weren't those the three majestic words? It's a boy. I have a son._

I hear my breathing in my ears as I'm led through a hallway maze and my heart is bounding out of my chest. I'm on my way to meet him. My little boy.

"She had him pretty quickly for a first baby," the nurse is making conversation and I think about the poor guy who's still out there in the lobby still waiting for his. We finally reach the door and before she peeks in she says sweetly, "Just want to see that she's ready. We wanna make sure momma and baby are all cleaned up and presentable."

"Aw shoot I don't care nothin' bout that. Messy never bothered me." And I think lady, just get me to 'em. If I have to wait another second I'll explode.

"It's not official visiting hours," the nurse goes on, "but we make exceptions for fathers right after birth. We ask that you try not to disturb the other patients," and I'm not even listening as I walk past her and through the door. Three beds are lined in a row and Gloria's propped up on pillows in the one furthest from the window. That ain't right. She should have the view. I smile at her with relief when I see she came out okay. I'll never tell her I had my doubts. Walking past, I notice the flowers at the other mothers' bedsides and I'm mad at myself for coming empty handed.

"Hey babe how you feelin'?" I try to be as attentive and caring as possible when all I'm noticing is there's something wrong with this scene, no baby in her arms or anywhere near. I lean down and kiss her cheek, my pulse running away from me.

"He's on his way," she says quickly and I guess she could see the worry on my face. "They had to take him back to the nursery for somethin'." I sit on Glory's bed and take her hand. I sense some kind of shift inside me, the way I feel towards her. Like maybe I'm seeing her in a different way. She gave me a little boy.

"You did real good Gloria. I'm proud of ya," and I don't know if she really needs to or it's an excuse, but she jerks her hand out of mine to tuck her hair behind her ear, and I'm reminded of the fight we had yesterday. A million years ago. A pang of guilt settles in my gut. I'm feeling bad for what I did.

"Well this is your one and only child Soda Curtis cause I'm never, ever doing that again," but I catch the humor in her tone. "All I'm gonna say is I have stitches somewhere I never knew you could get stitches." I cringe and suck air between my teeth and she laughs a little at my expression. "And it's gonna be a good while before you're allowed access down there," and I can tells she's not joking about that.

"God I'll miss it, but I promise I'll behave till it heals," and she finally gives me a smile.

"He's beautiful Soda," she says suddenly and despite just popping out a kid she's looking pretty hot to me. "You can't even believe how gorgeous."

"Of course he is, look at his momma," and I'm not just saying that. Gloria's something else.

"Well he's hours old and some would say you can't make out much on a newborn, but I think he looks like you Soda, the same eye shape, lips." I wonder how egotistical I have to be but a rush of pride fills up every part of my body. I want him to look like me.

"I can't believe it's a boy," I say, still in shock, "but I was nice and didn't say anything to your mom about how wrong she was." We both assumed it was a girl after Mrs. Grey sounded so confident about the matter. Something about how Gloria was carrying the baby. High or low or something.

"Mom's out there? God, I bet she's throwing a fit to get in here," Gloria says rolling her eyes. It's amazing how close they seem to be, considering how much bickering they do.

"Don't you worry 'bout your mom. She's got Darry out there, been flirtin' with him all night long," and I laugh but try to keep it down so I don't wake up the sleeping ladies.

"Well Darry's about the perfect age for her," she says then winces. "Stop Soda, it hurts to laugh," so I don't tell her anymore about it. I wouldn't want her to bust those stitches. But it was pretty funny.

"Well that means you get to name him," she reminds me, and I hadn't even thought of that. Gloria and I made a deal that she'd name a girl and I'd name a boy. Since I was sure it would be a girl, I'm unprepared. "My only input is, I think the world only has room for one Sodapop."

"Shoot I'd never do that to him," but I would like to give him something different. Keep up my father's eccentric naming talents. But definitely not anything as crazy as Sodapop. What the hell was he smoking?

Suddenly the door opens and a nurse is rolling in a little crib with a bundle of light blue inside. I stand up and watch my life coming toward me. My breath, my heart, the world, everything stops. "Here he is," she announces in a soft melodic voice, "all ready to be held and loved and snuggled." The nurse scoops him up like a pro, looking at us for direction on who to give him to.

I hold out my hands for him immediately at the same time Gloria says, "Let Daddy over here have a turn."

He's so tiny I can fit him on one hand. I thought I'd be nervous to hold something so soft and small and fragile, but the moment he's put in my arms I draw him in. I'm not afraid at all. He's mine.

I look down at his face. I have to squint at the blinding perfection and I can't believe what this feels like. Pure love. Larger and older than time. And only now do I realize how much Mom and Dad loved me. My love for my parents, unconditional and strong, I'm talking take-a-bullet for you strong, pales in comparison. It's nothing I can explain with words, there's no language for this, but everything clicks and what was a mystery now makes perfect sense. A thousand years of connections are wrapped between us, going both forward and backward.

I spent months trying to imagine what my baby might look like. He's nothing I pictured, but exactly as he should be. "Of course it's you. It was always you," I whisper and rub my thumb down his cheek.

"He's perfect isn't he?" Gloria asks and all I can do is nod. "So pure." She pauses and her voice gets real soft. "We haven't done anything to mess him up yet." And I know she's nervous and has doubts and she's just being honest, but I don't want her talking like that.

"We won't," I say and start walking with him, and his eyes open and look up at me. His little tongue comes out and goes back in. I lay him in his crib and start pulling back his blanket. I want to see every part. "Look how scrawny his legs are," I say and I can't believe how cute he is. "They're like little bird legs." I take my thumb and first finger and wrap it around his ankle that looks like it could fit in my wedding ring. I wrap him back up cause he looks cold.

I've never been happier. I feel like I could run to Mexico and back on the adrenaline of it. For this moment there's no war, no therapy sessions, no addictions or sickness. There's still good in the world.

The skinniest arm you've ever seen breaks free from the blanket and he's raising it straight up, triumphant. Or maybe it's rebellion. I'm good with either one. I give him a finger to hold and he wraps around me so tight. "Well you sure got a strong grip dontcha?"

* * *

It's seven already and I pitch my bleating alarm clock across the room, feeling a twinge of satisfaction when it slams the concrete block wall and falls into my gym bag. I throw my arm over my eyes and think about reaching for the aspirin on the windowsill right next to me, but even two inches seems too far. I go over my schedule in my head and contemplate skipping my classes, I only have two on Thursdays, but then I remember I have labs this afternoon and groan. Why did I go out last night? I know today's gonna suck.

It's already too loud out in the hallway. God I hate dorms. I'm in danger of falling back to sleep and missing the whole morning, but a loud knock sees to it that I don't. "Curtis you in there? You got a phone call," and I'm wide awake now. It's got to be important if Darry's calling before work.

I awkwardly climb over Lydia trying my best not to wake her, slide on jeans, pull a pair of her black panties that got tangled up from inside my shirt and toss them in her direction so she'll find them later.

Damn, why are people even trying to talk to me this early? I book it down the hallway, now steamed up from the showers and don't even pay attention to all their white noise: "Pony you look like shit man.", "Hey you got a razor I can borrow?", "Curtis you didn't run into Garcia last night did you?", and "Dude ain't that my Notre Dame shirt?"

I grab the phone and don't even bother with hello. "Darry," comes out rough and raspy, and I wait for him to launch in immediately with whatever it is. Darry and I rarely start our conversations at their beginning. We always seems to be picking it up somewhere in the middle.

I hear talking in the background before he finally says into the phone, "Hey Uncle Pony," and it takes me half a second to put two and two together. But once I do my heart cracks open.

"No way," I breathe with disbelief and delight, "you're kiddin' me Darry. Aw man that's great. What'd he have?"

Darry laughs and assures me it's true, that the baby was born this morning around three. It feels good hearing my brother so happy. "Well what the hell do you think he had? It's a boy of course. We're Curtises ain't we?" My God, Soda's a dad. "I ain't seen him yet but Soda says he's one good lookin' baby," and then Darry's voice gets more tender. "Soda's over the moon, Pony." Well I'm right there with him.

"What's his name?" I finally think to ask and realize I'm grasping the receiver with two hands, pressing my cheek against it, desperate to jump through the phone and be where they are.

"They just now named him. He's Grip Michael Curtis," and I've never been more touched.

I tell Darry I'm coming home this weekend before we hang up, and I head back for my room and my girl with a whole new attitude. My day just shot up from shitty to perfect. In fact, from this year forward, it'll be impossible for March eleventh to ever suck again. Good news seems so foreign now and I float on it, moving in the chaos of the hallway that buzzes around me. My arms cross each other to grab the bottom of my t-shirt and I slide it up and yank it over my head, lay it at Cooper's door cause he's right. The shirt is his.

I can't believe it. Today there's another Curtis to walk this fine Earth. Grip Curtis. My grin is as bright and flashy as any of Soda's and I pull the chain to fix the dog tags that the shirt left twisted and hanging down my back.

* * *

I'm smiling when I hang up from Ponyboy. It's rare I get to call with good news. I spot Soda at the far end of a hallway and he's waving me to come down. I realize he's in front of the viewing window of the nursery and I pick up my pace, glad to finally get a look at my nephew.

Soda couldn't be any closer to that glass. "There he is Darry, they're bringing his crib up close right now." I haven't seen Soda this alive in years.

And now I can see Grip and I don't know if it's because we're related, but he just might be the best looking baby I've ever seen. "Soda, you got yourself a good one. He's a keeper."

How could I have been so angry the night Soda told me Grip was on the way? When it's the only good thing to happen to our family in so long. I feel ashamed for how I acted.

I watch Soda watch Grip. And in his eyes I see the look of my father. He's looking at his son the way Dad looked at us. Life is cyclical they say. Everything comes around again. There's comfort in that. "You gonna get a tattoo I guess?" and I don't even have to ask.

"Course I am, by the end of the week," he says without question then turns to me and points. "You'll do it with your kids too and Pony with his. It's tradition Darry." Soda's always been adamant about traditions. And out of the three of us, Soda's most like Dad. But he's right. I'll get one if I have a kid.

Grip starts crying and I wait for Soda to come undone but he doesn't.

"Look how strong his lungs are," he says beaming. I bet after a few sleepless nights Soda won't be quite as impressed.

I sure wish this could last. I can't pretend Soda's fixed by all this. But I know Soda, and he's gonna fight harder for his boy than he'd ever fight for himself. Grip Curtis just changed the playing field.

"It's not about me anymore," Soda says and I think I know what he means.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	19. Chapter 19

**THE TRIP**

PART XIX

 _I slip on ash and devastation, rubble making it hard to walk. Smoke still clings to wreckage and bodies lay out before me, some dead, most alive and begging to remain that way, hands fastened tight behind backs and lying face down as they've been told. I set the butt of my rifle down hard between a thin man's shoulder blades and tell him to quit moving and shut the fuck up, because there's a sound that's got my attention. I cock my head and try to make out where it's coming from. There's no mistaking it's the small, distant cries of a baby and I catch eyes with Harper. We both know now we've got hiders in the midst, scared little Gooks who won't come out and play with us._

 _"It's your turn," Harper says firmly and he's right. It's my turn to hunt. And the baby's leading me straight to target. The closer I get the louder the cries. "It's your turn, " Harper keeps repeating, and I know it is. Doesn't he know I know it's my turn? "It's your turn Soda, your turn to get the baby….."_

"Soda, wake up, the baby's crying and it's your turn," and my eyes blink even as they're closed when I remember where I am. Gloria shoves me in a lame attempt to get my ass up and moving, but it's a screaming Grip that finally wins the battle and my feet hit a cold floor. It's my turn.

I walk a crooked moonlit path to the crib across our room, reach in and scoop up my angry son, so angry that he's shaking now and I feel sorry for him though I'm smiling at all his rage. I lean in for that new baby smell, but another kind of odor signals it's time for a changing and I go to work. Diapers aren't that hard once you figure them out, and newborn shit ain't like real shit. Not yet anyway. I'm pretty much a pro already, holding up his little legs by his ankles, wiping him down, making sure I don't hurt his circumcision, tucking the diaper below his umbilical cord stump that refuses to fall off.

 _"Why does he need to get snipped anyway?" Gloria's upright in her hospital bed after a solid struggle to get in that position, and she stops the nurse who's here to take Grip away for his procedure. "Who says we have to circumcise him? We should keep him natural; the way he was born." The nurse waits for a final decision and Gloria looks to me for agreement, but as much as I hate handing Grip over, I don't take her side like she wants me to._

 _"I want him circumcised," and I say it with firmness, leaving her no room to argue. "He's gotta be Gloria. I won't have him lookin' different from all the other guys in the locker room." In a million years I never would've thought I'd have a conversation about how I want a penis to look. Despite sounding sure, I feel sick when he's whisked away and wince at the thought of the clamp that awaits him. It's the first real decision I've made as a father._

 _Gloria refuses to talk to me until Grip returns acting normal, no worse for the wear except for the gauzed wound hidden inside his diaper. I kiss my baby boy all over, hoping to make it up to him._

All changed, powdered and fresh, Grip still won't calm down so we stand in the glow of the refrigerator. Once full of beer and cold pizza, it's now stocked with Gloria's milk that she pumps and saves for night time. She tells me she wants me to feed him so I can have that chance to bond, but I know she's really needing a break. Who knew boobs were so functional? I sigh and switch Grip to my right arm. Gloria's beautiful tits are no longer mine. I work with one hand and set the bottle in a saucepan of water to warm, sit at the table with Grip on my lap and try and entertain him. Make faces, breathe him in, stare at him until my eyes hurt.

I squeeze out the milk to test on my wrist and Grip starts sucking before I can even bring the nipple to his lips. A warped curiosity takes hold. I hesitate, then lick the drops that now trickle down my arm and find it sweeter than I thought, and I figure I'm probably the only freak who actually steals a taste of a mother's milk. I lean back in my chair while Grip goes to town, grunting and eating as if I'll surely take it away at any minute.

And in one split second I feel the switch. The way it always comes on. The cozy moment has become bloodless, drained of all its warmth, and suddenly it feels like we're the only two alive, alone on this desert planet and pressed down by a vast universe of nothingness, only stars like eyes that watch us, cold and unfeeling. My stomach flips when the familiar panic, the dreaded weight settles in my gut. I push everything down and start counting the kitchen tiles, try to remind myself that I'm happy now.

 _"Aw there he is y'all, already lookin' like a dad. When you gonna bust out the ugly dad sweaters or the black socks with shorts?" Steve's laugh is more of a snort. "When does that shit start, huh?" I stop mid walk from my car and smile up at all of them. Everybody's here tonight, hanging on our porch and smoking the cigars that Darry bought to celebrate my Grip. Our Grip. I'm taking a break from the hospital where my wife and baby grow stronger and it's a perfect night. I happily fall into their hugs and handshakes, the love and laughter from my friends and brothers. And I feel peace for the first time since...I can't remember._

In this dark kitchen a thousand memories march like soldiers across my brain in straight formation and measured beat. And with a chest so tight and constricted, heaving now against the expertly knotted ropes of a highly skilled captor, I wonder what kind of life I'm able to really give my son. I glance down and realize he's staring straight at me. And there's something I catch in the way he's looking, like maybe he might see me for who I really am. "I'm sorry," I whisper.

* * *

"What's all this about?" Steve asks walking through and pointing at the open books and charts of symbols that litter our table. "Ya'll in some cult that's plottin' to take over the world or somethin'?" Sweaty, he collapses into a chair like he just jogged over here. And he did. He's on some exercise kick lately.

I shake my head at the counter, "Naw, Glory's really into astrology. Ya know, like the stars and signs and moons. She's been readin' up on Grip's personality." I'm slicing through my apple with a butcher knife that feels way too easy in my palm. "He's a Pisces. Gloria says he'll be creative and wise. Like an old soul. Oh, and he'll definitely love the water cause his sign's the fish." I don't have to look to know that Steve's rolling his eyes behind my back. But the way Gloria talks about it all, it's hard not to believe at least a little. She's as convicted in the alignment of the planets as I am in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I make a mental note to call Father Pat about Grip's baptism.

"Well look who's here, you're just the person I wanted to see," Gloria enters the room right when I'm turning around, and by her smile I can tell she means it. Steve's exactly who she wanted to bump into. She sits down across from him and I love when she looks like this. Kinda messy and natural and not all made up. She doesn't need to be. And her tits look amazing, pressed tight against her tank top, engorged with milk, huge and magnificent. "Y'all were sweet to send those pretty flowers to the hospital. Tell Evie thanks for me."

"We sent flowers?" Steve's clueless. "I mean, yeah sure, you're welcome." He stands up to help himself to our refrigerator for a coke and starts going on about how Evie's dying to get her hands on Grip.

Gloria extends a warm and open invitation. "Evie's welcome to stop by here anytime." She shifts positions and I can tell she's up to something. Watching Steve gulp down his drink, she clicks her frosty fingernails on the table and begins her inquisition. "So Steve, Soda and I were trying to get a story straight the other night and I wanna hear what you remember about a girl named Ami." And I should've known this wasn't over. Gloria's side eyeing me now, probably trying to gauge even the most subtle reaction but she'll get nothing from me. I match her stare, lean casually against the counter and bring the knife up to my mouth, slowly take the thin apple slice off the sharp blade with my tongue.

The conversation's quick. Steve tells the story exactly as I did. That Ami was a flirt looking for a good time, that I took her number with a promise to call just to get her out of our pool game and we went on with our night. He's even joking about it. "You should know this by now Gloria. Soda gets this kind of attention everywhere he goes. Believe me I've been a witness to it since first grade. Ain't his fault, is it Soda?" Gloria seems satisfied for now at least, and I can detect her little flutter of ego. She'll never admit it, but I know she gets off on people wanting something she has.

Just like that it's all over and she hops up, sounding almost cheerful. "I've gotta take a shower. Would you listen for Grip babe and let me know when he's awake cause I really need to feed him." She even comes over to give me a peck on the lips on her way out. "Remember Steve, tell Evie to come on over soon," she calls out, disappearing down the hall.

We say nothing until the bathroom door closes and the water's on full blast. Then Steve blows out a dramatic breath along with all the stress he's been holding in. "Damn Soda. What the _fuck_ man?" His hands are on top of his head, his hair gathered into both fists. He knows who I left the pool hall with that night.

My shoulders drop from tension and guilt and shame. My words are so thick I can hardly get them out of a dry mouth. "Shit. Man, I'm sorry you were in the middle. Thanks for coverin'." And I hate myself for doing this. To Glory. To our family. But that was before, in a messed up time when I wasn't myself. Am I ever myself anymore? And once again I've gone and fucked up something else. What the hell have I done?

Steve talks low, walking over so I can hear him. "It's only a matter of time 'fore Gloria tracks that girl down, asks for her side of the story and Soda, somethin' tells me she ain't the type to be discreet."

I know he's right and I don't even want to imagine Gloria talking to what's her name. If she's not discreet, all I can count on now is that Steve will be. "Don't go tellin' the guys 'bout this, ok?" My request sounds as pitiful as my judgment.

"Course not," he says with all the loyalty of a lifetime friendship. As if I even needed to ask.

"And God Steve, please don't tell Evie." Now I'm begging.

"Do you think I'm fucking crazy?" and he's looking at me like I most definitely am. "Somehow she'd make this my fault and have both our heads on a plate."

* * *

So far so good. A week's passed since her questioning of Steve and life's gone on like normal. No accusations, only minor arguments; she doesn't think I change enough diapers, I don't think she should go back to work at the bar. I'm beginning to relax into the dynamics that are starting to form. I'm settling in the roles we're building and the daily routines that are taking shape. And I need this. I can't lose what we've started now. I won't lose this. I'm a family man.

The glass door I push sets off a bell and I breathe in the smell of ink and bleach. The same beefed up wise guy I had last month appears from the back and I can see he remembers me too. "Whaddya doin' back here? Have another kid already?"

I go ahead and pull my shirt over my head while I tell him, "Nope, but I wanna get a word, keep it small and basic." I turn to show him where, my fingers following along one of my ribs at my side. "Right about here. Written out in cursive, just real simple. Glory."

* * *

Just when I thought Soda Curtis couldn't get any hotter, he's standing shirtless in front of the tv, flashing one of his sexy grins, all proud and full of himself when he shows me what's under that bandage. I look close at my name that's etched into his skin, still raw and bloody and I don't think I've ever been this turned on. I know I shouldn't, but shouldn't is exactly why I reach out and trace the letters, brush over them with my nails, hear his breath catch, feel the slightest flinch of his body. He'd never show weakness by asking me to stop, and when I press my whole hand up against the sensitive site, his beautiful wince fills me with a kind of arousal that's so deliciously sick.

I've lost myself. It seems a lifetime now that I've been covered in baby puke, knee deep in baby shit and piss. My breasts have leaked onto every shirt I own and I must've bled or had some kind of discharge coming out of me for a solid three weeks. My stitches are gone but the healing site is itchy and sore. Nothing about this month has been the least bit sexy. But tonight, Soda's managed to bring me back. I'd always wanted Soda to capture me, to claim me as his. To be _Soda's_. Instead I'm discovering with his perfect body now branded by my name, that this is what I've really wanted all along. Soda's _mine_.

I reach up and wrap one hand partially around his throat, not tight but firm, his pulse tapping against the artery exposed beneath my fingers. I kiss him roughly, bite his lower lip and I've never felt more aggressive. His hands are exploring all the parts of me they've always known, moving where I want, how I want, confident and commanding. He's ready once more to be the bad boy I've been missing, but before he throws himself all in, concern has settled on his face and in his breathless voice. "Are you sure you're ready for this? Are you still sore?" and he's never sounded more tender, more sincere when he whispers into my neck, "I don't wanna hurt you Gloria."

I take control and shove him as hard as I can on the couch because I need him. Because I want that hurt if it means having all of him.

* * *

I'll always feel a twinge of disappointment whenever I drive by and find the little white house closed up, dark and still. The Curtis home is our center; it's always been the place to go when nothing's going on. Now with Darry's head so far up Lizzie Monroe's tight little skirt these days, it's hard to catch anybody there.

So tonight I end up at Soda's apartment. Had to swing by to give him the cash my bookie owed him for a bet that paid off. Turns out he's home watching the baby while Gloria has a night out, and it was a good surprise when Ponyboy was actually the one to answer his door. "Hey look it's Two-Bit," he says reaching out to shake my hand, "what's goin' on man?"

It's nice having them to hang with, but it could be the most lame Saturday night I've ever spent. Soda's got Grip down on the floor sprawled on a blanket with baby toys, while Pony's draped across the couch. For some reason they've got the TV tuned into the Miss America pageant. And those two are actually in a disagreement over who gave the better answer on world peace: Miss Tennessee or Miss Georgia. Darry's right to wonder about them. I change the subject. "Man Soda, Grip's grown a ton since I seen him; looks like a whole different baby."

"He's four months old next week,"the proud dad says and starts listing all of his latest achievements. "Watch this," and he's put Grip on his stomach, who's now able to raise his head and look around. "Would you just look at that head control." It is pretty cute when the kid gets excited and starts kicking his legs behind him like a wild frog.

"Check it out Soda," Pony's laughing and pointing at Grip and then to the TV, "he's gettin' all jazzed up for the swimsuit competition."

"Hell I am too," I say and sink further in my chair, settling into the comfort of a boring night.

I check my watch at about ten and think about splitting when the door violently swings open and slams against the wall. Gloria's standing there, a pair of wild and burning eyes set on Soda like she's ready to launch and boy does she. Ponyboy and I can't do anything but sit and watch, caught dead center in the crossfire, and the night just got a whole lot more interesting.

Gloria's voice starts off more sinister than loud, seething, low and thick with a deep rage that sounds ready to boil over, "Soda, I know everything," and I wonder what in the world Soda's done. "I talked to Ami." She hasn't moved yet out of the doorway. Pony and I both look to Soda, who's still sitting on the floor and when he hears the name Ami, he lets out a breath and starts shaking his head. I hate to think it, but he already looks guilty to me. After he sticks a pacifier in Grip's mouth he slowly stands up and readies himself for the showdown.

"Gloria, babe nothin' happened. When are you gonna let this go?" He sounds condescending as he moves toward her.

Gloria's next words stop him in his tracks. "I know you fucked her," she's bordering between yelling and crying and shit just got real. I hear Pony shift his body over on the couch.

Soda's fired up now and his hands are all over the place while he shouts out his innocence, his voice rising as he goes. "That's total bullshit Gloria, that bitch is lyin' to you. I swear to God I didn't fuck her. I swear on my parents' graves, you gotta believe me," and either he's telling the truth or he deserves an Oscar for this performance. I'm starting to believe him.

"You're such a dirty liar Soda Curtis," and she's laughing now, but it's the kind of laugh that's insane, the kind that comes right before you lose it. "You're so fuckin' busted. You wanna know what got you busted?" Her laugh has disappeared and her look is deadly. "Little miss Ami was pretty familiar with the birthmark on your ass...described it to a tee." I glance at Pony who's looking at me. I can tell he can barely keep his jaw closed. Holy shit.

All three of us watch Soda as he stands in the middle of the damning evidence. He closes his eyes and rests his hands on his hips. Looks like he's trying to figure out where to go from here. After about ten seconds of awkward silence, he opens his eyes back up to Gloria and they look so incredibly sorry. He sounds emotionally exhausted when he swallows and says, "I swear Gloria I didn't fuck her." And he looks like he's really having to physically gear himself up to give in and finally admit the truth, to come clean. "She gave me head in the car in the parking lot. It meant absolutely nothing to me and I'm so sorry." Then he gains back some strength when he points and reiterates, "But I didn't fuck her. It was just a blow job."

We all look to Gloria now who's absorbing this news. She seems pretty calm and I start to relax a little, start to lean over for my keys to get the hell out of here, when the shit really hits the fan. In the second I turn my head, Gloria's charging across the room at Soda like a bull and he's ready for her. She runs into him with full force and when he steps back he trips over the vacuum and brings Gloria down on the floor with him. She straddles and pins him, slapping at his chest and face and pulling at his hair while she screams 'I hate you' over and over. I jump up and run to pull her off. The baby's cries are shrieks and I see Pony out of the corner of my eye with Grip in his arms quickly walking out of the room.

Coming up quick behind Glory, I work to catch her flailing arms. Soda's not fighting back of course, just doing his best to protect himself. I give up on her arms and reach around her waist instead and she probably only weighs about a buck o' five but I really have to work to pull her off of him. She's still swinging and kicking the air and at my full height her feet can't touch the floor. I don't know what else to do but carry her as far away from Soda as we can get. "Gloria calm down. I'm not just gonna let you beat on him." I can still hear him calling her a psychotic bitch by the time we get to the bedroom.

I think about flinging her, but I don't. I set her down easy on the side of the bed and put my hands on her shoulders, not for moral support but to keep her down, and I tell her repeatedly "it's okay" while we're both breathing heavy. Mascara's running down her face, her shirt is ripped, her lip is bleeding from an accidental elbow jab and her chest has wet spots cause I guess her boobs are leaking. She's an overall wreck.

She's not moving at all except for her body moving up and down as she's breathing in and out. Her voice is choked with tears when she looks up at me in disbelief and says, "How could he cheat? On me?" And I feel sorry for her.

The eye of the storm doesn't last long because Soda's back for more. I hear him coming up the hallway going off about Grip, now that he's realized Pony's hiding out in the bathroom with him. "What kind of a mother are you Gloria? No good mother would do this kind of shit in front of their baby." He's calling through the bathroom door, "Pony, we're taking Grip with us tonight. She ain't in no kind of condition to be anywhere near my son actin' like that."

I could've predicted that Gloria would fly off the bed and attack Soda again when he starts threatening this kind of shit. I stand in the doorway and don't let her by, and they go at each other while I stand guard in the middle. She's like a hysterical cat, screaming "Nobody's taking my baby away from me. You're the fuckup. You're the cheater, you're the one who's fucking insane."

"Soda, stop man. Just walk away," I plead and to Gloria I say, "Nobody's takin' nobody's baby away."

And then comes the familiar faraway wail of a siren getting louder by the second. Some idiot called the cops on this domestic disturbance and it was only a matter of time. Soda stops bitching and immediately becomes the smooth professional gangster, slipping into cleanup mode like second nature. We all know what to do when the fuzz comes around. We know how fast a simple call can turn into a full-sweep search and seizure on this side of town. Soda heads back in some closet and starts rustling around trying to hide God knows what. I know he's always had an unlicensed gun, AKA a stolen gun, swiped by none other than Dallas Winston himself. That's the only reason he keeps it. Gloria takes this little break from arguing to fall on the bed and start bawling.

Pony comes out of the bathroom panicked with a trail of spit-up running down his shirt, both of his hands juggling the baby and says really fast, "Two-Bit you gotta check my pockets. I don't know what's in there." I slip down his front pockets and there's nothing but gum. He turns his ass to me. "Check the back, I think my one hitter's in the left one." Nothing's in there but of course he makes me check again. Soda's gone in the bathroom and I hear the toilet flushing. I figured as much. All I can think is thank God Darry isn't here for this.

Soda's calm when he answers the door. Pony and I stand behind in the living room and I can't hear much of what the cops are saying, but I hear Soda answer, "Everything's fine officer, just an argument that worked itself out."

Of course it's protocol that they can't leave until they can see Soda's wife with their own eyes. Make sure she's okay. Soda lets them in and if this wasn't all so fucked up, I could laugh at Soda, his face scratched up and his hair in all directions pleasantly calling out, "Honey, Gloria, sweetie come on out and tell these guys you're okay."

We all know how this is gonna go. Gloria drags herself up the hallway looking like she's just been roughed up by her pimp. And I see their look of disgust when they think Soda's done this. And I get it. She's a woman. They're here to protect her.

"Ma'am did your husband do this to you? Do you want to press charges? Do you feel you're in danger here?"

The seconds drag as we all stare at Gloria waiting for her answer. I can almost read her mind as those wheels are turning. She's pissed. She's been cheated on. I see how her gaze falls on her baby boy asleep in Pony's arms. She wants Soda out of the picture tonight cause who really knows if he was serious about taking Grip away. I already know the ending. My stomach sinks for my friend.

She turns back to the cops and as she's subtly shaking her head no, she answers a clear "Yes."

And it's no surprise Soda simply nods and assumes position without complaint. Even gives Gloria a sad smile when she gives him up. We watch while he's frisked, his hands pressed against the wall while every part of him is patted down, we see him hold out his wrists for the cuffs that slap around them. Pony and I stay quiet. Gloria made her decision and that's that. We all know the truth of what happened tonight, but we also know the code of conduct. We may not have much money or class on our turf, but we know what it means to be a real man. Soda's never going to turn on his woman to the cops. It's ingrained in all of us and in Soda to take the fall, especially for the mother of his child. Any other reaction would be considered, in all ways, less than.

They lead him out into the spinning blue lights and I don't even need to tell him that I'll take care of things. He already knows.

I look over at the fallout. Pony's eyes are narrowed as he glares at Gloria and I know he's dying to call her every name in the book. But when Gloria says "Ponyboy," in the shakiest voice, "give me my baby," and tears are rolling down, Pony's face and demeanor immediately soften and he carefully places Grip in his mother's arms.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton


	20. Chapter 20

_I'm so sorry I've left this for so long. I blame summer..._

 **THE TRIP**

PART XX

"Turn to the left," and I follow her orders just like I followed my drill sergeants' years ago, though I sure as hell never smiled at them when I did. But this little officer's an attractive lady and I'm surprised to see a woman who's a cop. They probably just stick her in the booking room to take pictures, but even that seems a little too dangerous for someone her size. I look around and notice there aren't any backup guards in case some wacko decided to go apeshit and overpower her and I wonder why she'd even want a job like this.

Then I remember Gloria and all her talk about Women's Lib and I guess this is what everyone means when they say times are changing. I think that's great and all, but I'm also one of the good guys. I can't help but think it's not too safe when she's around the criminals who aren't as nice as me. I don't even like the idea of Gloria working late shift at the bar.

I turn to the left to face the clock that's caged, Time protected by its own set of bars, and I see it's midnight, now a Sunday morning and remember that no judge works the bench on Sunday. It's slowly dawning on me. Whether or not the charges are dropped, I'm gonna be in here till Monday, early at best, before I get my arraignment, lay down some bail and blow this joint. And I'm cursing Gloria in my head all over again.

I'm called to turn right now. I glance at the background of numbered lines behind me and this time I stand up straighter, raise my chin a little to try and make sure I reach that six feet mark and wonder why the hell I would even care about that, while the camera flash captures just another thug.

Finally facing forward, I blink at the bright light. Officer...I have to stare at her breast to read her name tag... Malone has to re-take it cause you can't have your eyes closed. This time she warns me when she's about to press the button and at last another set of mug shots can join my file. I think of Dally and all that tough talk about his rap sheet when I see my folder's looking a tad too thick in the officer's hands. Too bad the one person who'd be proud of my growing criminal record isn't here.

Looking up from my charts and the mug shots of old, I guess she's trying to be nice, cause she tells me, "You look a lot better than the last time you were here Mr. Curtis."

My stomach sinks when I remember that last time, even though I don't recall much of anything from that night. "That ain't sayin' much," I mumble and she nods her head in agreement. For her to even make a comment, I must've really looked like hammered shit.

It's the next step of this booking process and I let Miss Malone take control of my hands. She firmly holds each finger, pressing them to a cushion of ink and rolling them all over the little white cards. "Why do we gotta do this every time? I don't got a set of brand new fingers. My prints are the same," I joke to lighten her mood.

But she seems pretty serious about getting the job done and her answer is matter of fact. "It's standard procedure, and we're making sure you're who you say you are. You wouldn't want someone coming in here on some serious charge claiming to be Sodapop Curtis would you?"

"Believe me darlin', I mean ma'am, nobody in their right mind would wanna make that claim," and I finally get her to smile.

After I change into my orange monkeysuit, I hand over my stuff and sign off that all my belongings were properly recorded and can be stowed away in some cubby until I get them back with my freedom.

It's time for my one phone call and I'm not sure who to call. There's no sense in calling Darry. I'm pretty sure Pony and Two-Bit told him first thing and he's probably gathering his money together as we speak. Why call Gloria? Gloria's the reason I'm in here...fuck it. I'm calling Gloria.

I dial our number and wait for her to answer, wait for the recording that announces she's getting a call from a prisoner inside Tulsa County Corrections, and I get heated just hearing Grip's cries in the distance. "Gloria," I say with a sharp tongue and no room for any patience.

She doesn't even have the decency to say hello.

"What's wrong with Grip?" I ask even though I hear him start to settle. I'm pretty sure my phone call's what woke him up and she's nursing to calm him down.

"I'll tell you what's wrong with Grip," she says quiet at least for the baby's ears but I know I'm about to get bitched at. "Grip's daddy's a filthy cheater. We're done Soda. You should've used your call on Ami," and the phone goes dead before I can even tell her she'd better drop the charges and make this right. Why the hell did I have to call her?

As I follow the cute cop out of bookings and down the hall, she must've sensed the phone call wasn't too successful. Offering up a bright side, if a little warped, she reminds me, "Well at least they won't be putting you in solitary this time."

Is this woman ever gonna let me live down the last time? Jesus H. Christ. What is it with women? Do they live to bring up past shit and get off on rubbing your nose in it the rest of your fucking life?

But I manage a half smile that probably looks more deranged and agree with her, "Yeah, I got that goin' for me," and I'm happy to be parting ways when she hands me over to a dude. Finally.

I'm delivered to the holding cell of four other men, two of them look like drunk assholes. They're definitely college boys, trust fund pussies who don't know how to hold their liquor. Something tells me every inch of their clothes that sit in those cubbies tonight are covered in Greek fraternity letters. Suddenly solitary confinement sounds like a dream.

I roll my eyes and find an empty bunk to take over, planning on sleeping my time away, but the frat boys don't plan on shutting up any time soon. I try to block it all out, especially the huge beast who's comfortably taking a crap in the corner toilet we have to share, exposed and in the open. Who the hell doesn't hold it in for the sake of us all? That big guy, that's who. He's probably three-fifty and could squash us like flies. He can do whatever the hell he wants.

I lie down on my stained mattress and find it pretty comfortable, considering the conditions I've slept in. I roll over towards the cinder block wall, close my eyes and go over the first shitstorm that went down tonight. I may be pissed at Gloria, but I also know I belong here. Not for the reason she got me arrested, I ain't no wife beater, but I've most certainly earned my punishment. For cheating. For being a dick. A failure. For all those things that I've done that I won't let cross my lips. The people I destroyed. And now I've gone and destroyed my little family.

If it weren't for Grip, I might just say to hell with it. Have the guards lock me up and throw away the key. But I love my son. So I'll get out of here on Monday and live out my life for him, try to be normal, try and act like the war and every other ugly thing about me doesn't exist.

Slurring, one of the idiots think it's a bright idea to start asking what everyone's in here for. I act asleep but listen to my cellmates' charges and crimes. It's no surprise the students are in for drunk and disorderly, the big one's in for assault and battery, and the old guy with no teeth must not feel much like talking tonight. He sits on his bed humming a tune, the blues, his back against the wall.

"What about Soldier Boy over there?" the jerkier one asks me, not caring if I'm asleep and it takes me a second to realize they must see my tattoo. "What are you in for?" I don't like his tone. I've heard it too many times in my life. "Well?"

"Probably a junkie, all those Vets are hooked on heroin ya know," his friend decides and hiccups.

"I'm not in for drugs," I say sitting up, surprising them with my sudden answer. And I glare at the two little punks and can't believe Pony puts up with dickheads like these on a daily basis. "I'm here cause I cut off a man's ears."

It's the most truthful I've been in awhile and it actually shuts them up. Nobody's bothering me tonight. I roll back over, catching a toothless grin from the bunk across from mine.

But it's no use trying. Sleep won't save me now. All that I've done and seen haunts me, the shame, the memories that won't let me forget. Please, just let me forget. I rub my eyebrow and feel the scar that cuts through it. And I know the past must be a woman.

* * *

Grip sleeps next to me, my anchor, my life, and the peace of him surrounds us like the moonlight, an aura of protection. But reaching out beyond his soothing presence, my hand grasps for the empty side of the bed.

 _"God Soda why can't you just talk to me? Or do I have to have some psychology degree to earn your conversation?" I'm tired of sharing my husband. There's never anything left over when he gets back from all those stupid sessions. Won't even tell me the first thing about them. "I'm your wife. It's me you should be talking to." Your wife who's carrying your child._

 _I'm not shouting at him. I'm just trying to make contact. But he sits two cushions away from me and stares into some mindless tv show. I don't even think he hears me. I stretch out, tuck my cold toes between the couch and under his leg, wiggle them against his jeans that are worn well, to the point they're soft. And he feels so warm to be so cold. He never looks over. Under my breath I give in. "You don't even care to love me."_

 _I'm surprised when my feet are grabbed and lifted suddenly in his lap, his hands gently pressing them, holding them, warming them and it's the most tender he's ever been with me. "I care. That's what I been doin'. I go to that doctor so I can put myself back together, learn how to love again."_

 _But all I can hear is what hurts. "So you're saying you don't love me?"_

 _He finally turns his head and looks confused. He never understands how devastating he can be. "Can't you see I'm tryin' to Gloria?"_

I can't do this anymore. I can't wait around for a man to love me while he goes and gets his kicks with some random chick in a parking lot. I won't do this.

My fingers search his cold deserted spot, clawing the sheet into a ball for a desperate fist. Soda's gone. And not just for the night. It's the sick and ghostly realization that he was never ever here.

* * *

"So she dropped the charges?" Steve's hardly breathing heavy when he asks. Meanwhile I feel like my lungs are being punctured repeatedly with a dull blade. I can only take one runner in my life. Now it's gotta be my best friend too? Dragging me out here with some junk about how running can lift your mood. "You don't have to go back to court or nothin'? It's over?"

I can't answer yet. I focus on the pounding of our soles on pavement, naturally falling into line, a solid rhythm, like the good soldiers we learned to be in boot camp.

I slump over and catch my breath when we reach the corner of Sutton and pray the light won't change too fast so I can take a second. Steve jogs in place like an asshole with all his endurance, probably just to rub it in that he's stayed in far better shape. Hard to believe how far I could run only a couple of years ago. But it's easier when you're running for your life. "Yeah, it's over," I pant. "She dropped 'em and then told me to get the hell out." I'm practically dying, my head hanging down to just about my knees when I answer, so I'm surprised he would even understand me.

But he must've, cause he stops jogging and finally shows some mercy. "You wanna run over to Ray's and grab some breakfast?"

"Yeah, but how 'bout we walk over." Steve smiles and waits for my official surrender that I don't mind giving. "Man, I give. You win." Steve loves to beat me. And does, in almost everything.

xXx

"She says she wants a divorce. I think it's all talk though." I over salt my eggs and then poke at them with my fork. "I don't know...I think she's just kickin' me in the balls for awhile and I'll let her. Hell I deserve it. But that happened a long time ago. Things had been real good between us since Grip. I don't think she's really gonna leave." Steve's attacking his ham and cheese omelet while I ramble, but I know he's listening to every word. I don't feel much like eating, but I bite down on buttered toast.

"So you're back with Darry and Pony now? What about Grip?" Leave it to Steve to cut right to the chase. He knows I would never stand for Grip being kept from me.

I talk around a full mouth of bread. "So far she's never given me a problem when I come see him, which is every day. Lets me take him out sometimes too." I swallow and leave out the part that before all this, she promised that if I ever threaten her with taking Grip away again, she'd have me arrested for good. And she probably could. Glory has a lot of shit on me. But I still don't believe she'll walk.

"Well that's good then," Steve says, but I can tell he sees nothing too good about this situation. And I haven't even told him yet I lost my job when I didn't show up Monday, but apparently being incarcerated ain't a legitimate excuse.

 _"We're letting you go Curtis." The boss man doesn't even let me punch my time card before he's firing me in front of the entire morning shift lining up to clock in. He won't even let me state my case._

 _I stand there and let it all sink in. Watch my life circle the drain. I hurl my welders helmet against the lockers and storm out. A couple of people clap._

"I'll win her back," I tell Steve, and myself. "Somehow." I wipe the crumbs off my mouth with a paper napkin. Wad it up and throw it on a half eaten plate. I notice my bouncing knee is wildly shaking the table so I stop. Look up and give my friend a sorry excuse for a smile, but damn if he doesn't smile back.

He knows I'm hanging by a thread.

* * *

"God I hate this shitty hippie music." Steve's already complaining and we have to lean over the table to even hear each other while the music blares. Someone chose Copperhead's tonight instead of Pauly's and it's no wonder we're not there. I heard Pauly's was ground zero, the place where Sodapop got into some trouble. And this night is about taking Soda out and showing him a good time. Let him escape his worries a bit. He's been real down lately. And who could blame him? He's pretty much lost everything in the span of a week. But he's still got Grip.

"I dig this music, and so does Soda, right Soda?" I throw my arm around my brother's shoulder and tell Steve, "Quit your bitchin'."

"Pony, all you do is bitch, good Lord," Steve comes right back at me. And it's nice. It's normal. And normal is what Soda needs.

Soda's actually looking better tonight. He's run into lots of people he knows. They keep coming to our table, surprised to see him out and about. _Hey Soda where you been? Hey look it's the one and only Sodapop Curtis. Soda, come back to Woody's with us._ It's a steady stream of fans, the crowd he used to run with, and it's starting to get annoying but he never looks bothered. He's nice to everybody but politely refuses all their offers to join them. He sticks with us. And he sips his beer and he jokes around and he seems like Soda.

"I'm okay with the music but I'm gettin' sick and tired of all these girls turnin' hippie these days." Two-Bit's scanning the crowd of ladies, shaking his head, then turns and starts counting off his fingers and breaking it down for us. "Protesting, I'm cool with it. Braless, hey, I'm more than okay with that. Strung out, I could get used to. But not shaving your legs and pits? Now that's where I draw the damn line."

Everyone agrees and winces when Two-Bit tells us how he got in bed with a hairy woman last weekend. "I mean, I fucked her of course...but c'mon."

"I'm eatin'. Do you mind?" Steve's elbows deep in chicken wings and hot sauce.

"Man, I'm surprised Evie let you out of the house," Soda says, and he's not ribbing him. He's being serious. I wonder why Steve would be in trouble.

"No shit, right?" Steve answers him rolling his eyes. Two-Bit looks confused so he explains, "When Evie found out about Soda you'd think I cheated on her. Now she's givin' me the cold shoulder, thinks I'm up to no good. Only reason I'm out tonight is 'cause he's here," and he jerks his thumb in my direction. "She trusts Pony for whatever reason." And even I have to chuckle, just a little though.

"What?" Two-Bit belts out. "Pony pulls in more wool than any of us!" And I look around, glad the music's drowned out this clown. Whatever my record, I've never cheated on anyone. I would never.

"Who knows. I guess 'cause she knew him way back when and thinks he's still fourteen," Steve huffs out his nose just thinking about it and hands his basket of bones to the waitress who passes by.

"That and he's quiet." Now Soda's gottta get in on this too? "But quiet's who you gotta watch out for." And I look at him with a warning glance. He knows better than to spill what I told him in confidence. And he'd never. He winks at me and pretends to lock his lips, tossing a fake key.

"That and he looks like a nerd," Two-Bit teases, and I let them all laugh and get away with it. One, cause it's pretty funny and two, I'm the one who won't end up alone tonight.

Soda jerks up his beer and shoots out of his seat. "I'll be back," he says slow and quiet and he's looking across the room like he knows someone up close to the stage, then disappears into the crowd.

Now that he's gone, Two-Bit and Steve want information.

"So how's he really been?" Two-Bit asks and I know he's not being nosy. Well he is, but he's also concerned. Steve leans in and expects me to give him everything.

"He's been down of course. Darry and I've been worried." I hate to talk about him behind his back, but this is family. "In fact, Darry suggested we get outta town for a bit. It's a good time to get away. Soda sure ain't workin' now and Darry and I can get some time off. We wanna go campin' like we used to. Like we did with Dad. But he won't do it."

"Why? That'd be perfect for him, for y'all," Steve says, looking frustrated.

"He won't leave Grip. Even for a few days. I mean, I get it." I stand up for him a little, because Grip really is the only thing that seems to be keeping him sane, and because I feel so sorry for him.

"Wait, who's he talking to now? She's cute. Is that blowjob girl?" Two-Bit's trying to position himself to see better and Steve scans the crowd until he finds them, announcing that's not the girl he remembers from that night.

I stand up and take a look myself, zero in on the stage and see the back of Soda's head and a girl looking up at him with the fullest smile. It's contagious. And familiar. I smile too. "Naw, that's just his friend Patty."

Steve gets back to business. "Now tell me again why Soda won't go back to work for Darry?"

"You know Darry. It's enough just livin' with him. To work for him? He's so controllin'." I notice Steve and Two-Bit exchange a look that doesn't sit right with me. "What's that look for?"

"Nothin'," Two-Bit shrugs.

But Steve, of course, doesn't hold back. "We just think it's crazy how you and Soda can't see that y'all two are just as controllin' as Darry," and I'm completely taken back.

Two-Bit tries to smooth it over. "I mean, don't take it wrong, it's nothin' bad Pony." But then he goes ahead and adds to it. "Darry gets a bad rap. Cause really all three of y'all are controllin'. In your own weird ways."

"For you guys, it's a Curtis world and we're all just kinda livin' in it," Steve says, leaning back and running a hand through his short clipped hair. "That's how it's always been."

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I'm the least controlling person I know. Soda, absolutely. He's more manipulating than anything. But me? That's ridiculous. They're absolutely wrong about me.

Soda's on his way back so they change the subject. "Where's Darry tonight anyway?" Steve asks, clearing his throat and taking a swig.

"He had a game against the fire department," I say, still insulted. Darry plays baseball through his work league for fun. Fun being the key word. But he always comes home mad cause they're always losing.

Soda returns to his seat apologizing, "Sorry, I saw an old friend."

"Hey Soda, did you know these two jackasses think we're controllin'?" I can't help but bring this back to the table, and Two-Bit and Steve groan and say "See?"

Soda talks and goofs around with us the rest of the night, but his wandering eye is on the loose. And it's never too far away from Patty and what looks to be her boyfriend.

And I start to wonder if there's something between Soda and Patty. More than friendship. But then I remember Soda's married. I keep forgetting that. And apparently, one night at Pauly's, he did too.

* * *

How am I gonna do this? He's got Grip laid out in his lap and his little baby foot up against his lips, kissing and nibbling on toes and Grip's actually started laughing recently. My heart melts seeing them. But I can't stay with Soda. I'll never trust him again. And I deserve better. I tell myself this over and over as I work up the nerve. Oh my God he's gorgeous.

I walk fully in the living room and lean against the wall. "Soda we have to talk," I interrupt, but he doesn't look up. He keeps on with Grip, holding him in the air and then bringing him back down to blow raspberry kisses on his stomach. I breathe in a shaky breath. Oh fuck this. I'm strong. I'm right. "Soda, I'm taking Grip to visit my mom's for the week. We leave Monday."

He still won't look up but says calmly, "No you won't."

Good. Now this is much easier. This is what I know how to do. I know how to fight. "Yes I will, and I've also filed for divorce. You'll be served the papers by the end of the week." And the look on his face, the pain in his eyes have my knees starting to crumble. I immediately change my tune. I get soft. "Soda, I'm not taking Grip away from you. I'd never do that. I really do have to go visit my mom cause she hasn't been feeling well. I'm comin' back and we can meet with an advisor and make sure we get a custody arrangement that works for you."

He must feel the shift in his daddy because Grip starts screaming and crying out of the blue, drool pooling and rolling out of his mouth. Soda stands with him, bounces and pats him, all while he's trying to take everything back. Panic stricken and thinking words can make everything okay. "You can't do this Gloria. We're a family. There's never gonna be anyone else ever again. I promise. I'm gonna get a job. I'm gonna keep going to therapy and I'll get better. You'll see. I love you Gloria."

But all of that is way too late.

I go in the bathroom, lock the door, and slide against it all the way down to the floor, covering my choking sobs with my hand. It's over. It's over.

* * *

I drive home on autopilot, in complete shock. It's over. And all I can think about is Grip. I've failed him. We've failed him. We can't give him two parents who are together, who love each other. I think about Mom and Dad. I think about the love they had even with all their problems. How devoted my dad was to a woman who got lost along the way. And he never gave up on her and somehow put her back together.

But it's no wonder Gloria gave up on me. I fucked her over. I'm nowhere near the man my dad was. And I'll never be able to give my son that gift.

I wanna puke. I wanna destroy myself. I wanna go back and do everything different. Be young again. Be nice and stay that way. Stay good. Then maybe I wouldn't have become so mean, done all those horrific things in the jungle. I'd come back whole or maybe not at all. But at least I never would've lost myself.

Dr. Fran says I've gotta find my way back. That it was always supposed to be a journey, but never a simple one.

 _"C'mon Soda, let's go campin'. Whaddya say?" Darry actually looks excited about something, his eyes are even twinkling. "Maybe we can go to Dad's old stompin' ground. Just forget about life for awhile. Get back to where it all started. Get back to the Earth. Back to who we really are."_

This week, with Grip away, I have nothing to hold on to, and nothing to hold me here.

I park and look around, not even sure how I ended up in my driveway safe and sound. Darry's car is gone, but Pony's light is shining, and I run inside toward it.

* * *

A boring Saturday night is just what the doctor ordered. Darry and Soda are out, I've got the house to myself, some good tunes and some good weed.

I plug my headphones into CSNY and the opening guitar riff of Woodstock shoves me back on my bed and has it's way with me. I close my eyes and take another slow drag, and Im still pissed Soda didn't take us to Woodstock like I'd asked. _Got to get back to the land and set my soul free._ And something in me rises to that lyric. _And maybe it's the time of the year...maybe it's the time of man. And I don't know who I am but life is for learning._

My eyes shoot open when I feel a tug on my headphones and why is Soda in my room whipping my cord out of the stereo? The music's left my ears and filled my tiny bedroom and before I know what the hell's going on Soda's standing over me and yanking out my joint and takes a giant drag off of it.

 _We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon,_ and he's looking like he stepped right out of the song.

A steady stream of smoke snakes out of his mouth and he's looking up, his eyes closed. _We are caught in the devil's bargain._ And I'm wondering if I should be worried about him but I'm too stoned to care.

I don't know what's happened but Soda's not the same. He grabs my shoulders tight. "Pony, I'm ready. You, me and Darry. Let's go on that trip." And I smile a crazy grin while the music folds around us, takes us in and gives us a way back.

 _And we got to get ourselves back to the garden._

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton, Woodstock by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

 _Thanks to all of you who are sticking with me and still reading!_


	21. Chapter 21

_I've made a few subtle edits and decided to take this story back to a T rating. Hope you enjoy!_

 **THE TRIP**

PART XXI

Tulsa's only five miles behind us and Darry's already studying the map in the passenger seat, its accordion folds spread open across his lap and partially propped against the dash. His finger traces the spiderwebs of tiny pink lined highways as he double-checks the itinerary he worked up last week, calculating all our possibilities. Every now and then he nods or shakes his head in this silent conversation with himself, confirming he's found the best route, the best camping sites, the best places to stop for gas or to take a leak.

Soda's driving the first shift, foot heavy on the gas, excessively speeding to make up some time we lost from our late start. I guess he feels like he owes it to us, since it was his fault we didn't get off at Darry-the-self-proclaimed-Travel-Expert's recommended time of eight sharp. With Soda not in his bed and nowhere to be found, Darry burned up the front sidewalk where he paced back and forth, waiting, checking his watch and going over everything in the trunk a hundred times, making sure not a single item had been forgotten.

Soda finally rolled back home about ten, carrying nothing but a vague apology and an almost empty pillowcase with his bare minimum essentials. "Hey sorry I'm late guys. Had some business to tend to."

Now we're heading south and east, the road inviting and endless, and whatever made Soda late doesn't appear to be bringing him down so far. In fact, nothing's holding any of us back as we shoot for the state line and let our spirits stretch out a little. Remembering there's a whole universe outside this town, outside this weathered little family and it's as much ours as it belongs to anyone else. And that there'll always be a far greater story than the little one we're writing every day.

Darry's giving Soda directions as he struggles to fold back the map. "I say we cut over here and we'll make it to Texarkana by nightfall. Tomorrow mornin' we'll get to Natchitoches by lunch and look around, find Mom's old house." Darry finally gives up and throws the crumpled map against the windshield in frustration. I chuckle under my breath at the temper that always gets the best of him.

Soda blows a bubble then inhales, sucking it loudly back into his mouth and adds, "Then out to Kisatchie right, Dad's old bayou?" His tongue works at removing the gum strand stuck just below his lip.

Darry nods and I envy the way they throw these Louisiana names around so easily like they belong. To me they sound foreign and I'm reminded how much better they knew our father.

"Hey look at that," Darry says quickly and points at a used car lot on the side of the highway. I turn to catch a glimpse as we fly by it. "There used to be a motel right there. I remember that windmill sign. We stayed there with Dad one night, a long long time ago."

"Yeah I think I do 'member that," Soda says slowly, like he's allowing the memories to settle into place. "We got rained out of our campsite and he took us there instead," and I crane my neck to look again, this time out the back window as the windmill grows smaller until the horizon swallows it whole.

I figure I was left at home with Mom when nothing about it strikes a chord, and I tell my brothers, "I must not've been with y'all that night."

"Yeah you were," they say at the same time, without any kind of doubt. And once again I'm finding out how I played a part in some long-ago play I never knew existed.

"Speaking of campsites, I found a real good one at the state park on Cane River." You can tell Darry's excited when he starts talking fast. "Has bathrooms and showers, we can rent a boat, and they got grills for our fish and maybe some frog legs if y'all wanna go giggin'," and as he's listing off all the perks of our accommodations, we both notice that Soda's shaking his head and we stare at our brother as he keeps his eyes on the road.

"We don't need all them things Dar," Soda says soft but firm, and I'm thinking yeah we do, but I stay silent, because whatever Darry or I get out of this trip is not the reason we're on it. Whatever Soda wants, whatever he's looking for this week, we're ready to give it to him. So we watch him intently and wait for him to tell us what to do.

"If we're gonna camp, let's _camp_. Fuck all them state parks and the ready-to-go sites and waitin' your turn for the bathroom and borrowin' some toilet paper from some weirdo family who drove down from Missouri in matchin' t-shirts." Soda throws his blinker on and pulls over to a deserted spot on the side of the road. "Sorry, gotta take a piss."

He climbs out, already unzipping his fly and Darry and I look at each other with a shrug and a nod, like maybe Soda does have a point in all this. Though I feel a little sorry that Darry did all that research and his plans are on the verge of falling through.

Soda has his back turned to the passing cars while he unleashes a stream and marks his territory, the Earth as his. And an occasional honk brings about his casual half wave. Really, I'm kinda surprised he's not facing the road, his audience, without inhibitions.

He climbs back in and I scoot forward, lean in between my brothers' seats and pick up where he left the conversation. "So you wanna go somewhere more remote you mean?"

Soda's waiting before he has to merge back in oncoming traffic and he turns to face us with a look I haven't seen from him in awhile. "Let's go get lost in the bayou," he says with a pull that somehow already has me convinced. "I want us to fall off the grid. I wanna be unfound, so we can find each other. God, does that even make sense?" He pauses to adjust the rearview, until it's lined up where we can see each other's eyes. "I wanna go deep with y'all."

* * *

Under a thick canopy of dense and rioting branches, we're shaded even more by the Spanish moss that grows heavy here and sweeps the forest floor. We're close enough to water, but far enough to be away from the snapping gators, though we spotted a couple along our way to the protected clearing that my little brother deemed acceptably wild and uncivilized enough.

Setting up our camp was easy for Soda of course, and surprisingly for me as it all came back like second nature, even though it's been almost a decade since I've staked a tent, but we had to help steer the process with Pony, who's never had the proper chance to learn.

It's been three days so far of no human contact except for my little brothers, and Pony and I are catching up fast to Soda's stubbled beard.

We've watched Soda relax into nature and earth, molding to fit into the swamplands as seamlessly as any Creole, and I know we're both imagining our brother as he must've been in the jungle, and though a bit unsettling, it's impressive all the same.

"Ya'll had any bites?" I ask and I know Soda hasn't cause he's already laid his cane pole down and stepped away, wading into the water.

"Just a couple nibbles," Pony mutters and slaps at another kind of bite, a mosquito that leaves a smear of blood, the partial meal it'd already managed to suck out of his leg.

We're as lazy and sluggish as the humidity, and you can't get further away from responsibilities and routines than this, three brothers fishing, isolated in a different kind of country than we're used to, and even the shrieks of some of the birds sound almost exotic to my ear, different than regular old Oklahoma birds.

But our blood roots run deep along this Cajun bayou where Dad was raised, and I see him in every bend and turn of the river we're following.

I notice Soda eying the murky water below as he goes in deeper, and a blinding flash of sunlight on steel exposes the Bowie knife he holds at his side.

"What the hell's he doing?" Pony asks but to himself, and in a matter of a millisecond, Soda's raised his knife and has already hurled it down in agile and fluid form, disturbing the water that now splashes and ripples out from the violent but flawless attack.

Soda, grinning and proud, holds up the fish that's been pierced straight through, still flapping its gills and arching, suffocating on a Southern breeze.

"Whoah did you see that?" Pony asks me in amazement. "Damn, Soda Curtis for the kill," he laughs then calls out, "that was cool as hell man."

And it was.

I feel my father smiling through me.

xXx

The sound of Pony's shot ricochets, slicing soundwaves cleaner and faster than the bullet zipping off through woods, missing its coke bottle mark. "Pony you need to get them eyes checked," I tease him and he's already firing back at me.

"Oh I'm sorry Darry," he says with heaping sarcasm, "I must've been absent from school the day they went over _weaponry_."

Soda chuckles and takes Dad's old shotgun gently from Pony and hands it to me, mindful of where it's pointing. "So you're not a good shot Pony. Who the hell cares? I'm glad you don't got a reason to be."

With a lanky arm propped on Pony's shoulder, he's leaning in a relaxed stance, his smile now aimed at me, ready to see what I can do. "Alright Mr. BB Gun Backyard Champ, let's see if you still got it, old man."

And at the challenge that's poised in both his grin and his eyes, I laugh knowing I'm about to get my ass whooped by a little brother who's never stopped trying to one-up me.

"Alright," I say casually, and I make a show of stretching out and loosening up my muscles, just to kid around, but I'm all business when I line up my shot. It's been awhile since I've hunted or shot skeet but I still hear all of Dad's patient instructions as I find my aim, the stock of the gun pressed firm against my shoulder, ready for the recoil, eyes locked on my target. I hold tight to wood and steel while willing the rest of me relaxed, and hold a breath when I pull the trigger, releasing all that fire and power that bites back deep inside my chest. In a blink the bottle is nothing more than shards, annihilation in a dust cloud of fine glass twinkling.

"Hey man, nice shot," Soda drawls and his slap on my back is as sincere as his compliment. And along with the proud satisfaction that comes from the expert's approval, it's strange to feel far younger than him in so many ways. Soda knows what it is to be a soldier and hell, now a father. A real one. Not some half-ass guardian to a teenager. Standing next to him, I feel like some kid.

The gun gets heavy when I watch him turn and walk away from us, not even bothering to shoot. There's no reason for showing off. For him, this pissing contest is nothing but child's play.

"Wait Soda, ain't you gonna show us how it's done?" Pony wants to see it for himself, this accomplished marksman in our midst. And hell so do I.

The soldier stops and turns to face us, his brown hand coming up to meet his forehead, not in salute but to shield his squinting eyes from a late afternoon sun and I realize we're all three standing in the exact same way, looking at each other under the visors of our palms and fingers aligned.

His smile is as slow and lazy as his speech, "So I guess you wanna see how I did it in the jungle huh?" and our nods are hardly necessary.

He returns to take the weapon from my hands, treating it carefully in the transfer. But once it's away from me, he handles it more naturally, smooth and relaxed. And Pony and I watch his every move as he gets in position, this brother of ours, this headhunting sniper. It's hard to fuse the two and I don't think I ever will.

He crouches then lies on his belly in tall grass, propped by his own two elbows, because I guess that way feels more familiar to him, how he's used to shooting; hiding, laying low, always tracking. And Soda's hands are almost graceful how they caress the trigger, and I can't help but think of the devastation those hands have caused, when he lived another life.

As he concentrates, I could swear the look that settles on his face is something I don't recognize as his, and I have to look again to make sure he's Soda and not someone more sinister, with far colder blood.

The bayou suddenly darkens when we find ourselves under the racing shadow of a storm cloud. The blazing sun's been overpowered and somewhere high above the skeleton trees, a bird hollers out our hallelujah for this reprieve. I hear the cock of the gun and when Soda does it, somehow it sounds louder and far more dangerous, and I know the remaining bottles have no chance in hell against the prowess of a hunter such as this.

My stomach feels as unsettled as the charged atmosphere and his subtle eye shift to the right is his final look to be sure Pony and I are safe and clear of his line. And before I can say what the fuck, Soda's fired off three quick shots in succession, none of them coming near the bottles, each one aimed in three distinct areas, encompassing the arc of 180 degrees. And we're left with the smell of a smoking gun and the feathered carcasses of two birds and an unsuspecting water snake who'd slithered too far out in the open, all three blown to bits without mercy or mistake.

Pony and I are stunned to silence as we look to Soda who's hopping back to his bare feet. He meets our eyes and all the awe they hold, and lest we think these are unnecessary killings, he tells us, "We can eat those ya know."

* * *

Despite the fifteen degree temperature drop, despite the wind and rain that slap and shake our canvased shelter, it's hot and stuffy in this three man tent. I'd strip down to my underwear but I never wear it, and I don't think Pony or Darry would put up with that, at least not in quarters as close as this.

I haven't talked about Vietnam much with them, not since I first came home and they asked a lot of questions that I never minded answering. There's no harm in talking about it, long as you stick to the surface and don't go near the dark stuff. And besides, I like telling stories. But that was all before the subject became taboo in our house. When my brothers decided what I was or wasn't able to handle. And I watched them bury my war in the dirt of the family secrets, and they've tiptoed around it ever since.

Not that I blame them.

And as much as I wanted this trip, needed this trip, I felt a panic rising the morning we were set to leave. There was only one person to call.

 _"Thanks for meeting me so early. And without hardly no notice."_

 _"Soda," Dr. Fran tells me, smoothing out my profile sheets with plump and well manicured fingers, "I treat all my patients equally. But when the guy who's come up with every excuse to ditch a session, calls me on a weekend morning and says he wants to see me, how can I resist?" Her smile says she's only half kidding, but her eyes have always told the truth. "Intrigued would be an understatement."_

 _It's strange to see her in a jogging suit instead of dressed for the office, and it's almost awkward, intimate even, like she's not wearing clothes at all._

 _I stretch the neck of my t-shirt away from my throat and take a strangled breath. "I'm leavin' town today. Going campin' with my brothers."_

 _Her_ _eyebrows raise and my stomach sinks, sure she's thinking this is a horrible idea. "I think it'd be nice for you and your brothers to get away," she says instead, pulling her glasses off to see me better. "But how do you feel about it Soda?"_

 _"Nervous." I've been hunted down and shot at and my own two brothers make me nervous. "Scared I'm gonna spill somethin'."_

 _"And what does that mean?" The silence after her question drags me forward. And I'm searching for the words along the way._

 _"Everything I've kept from them, that they don't wanna hear, shouldn't have to hear, might just come oozin' out cause I can't hide it no more." The arms of the chair feel like the only things holding me up._

 _"And then what Soda? What would happen if you spilled it? They know you've been to war. They know you've seen terrible things, participated in wartime behaviors." My chest clenches at the thought and she has no idea what this does to me._

 _But there's something that calms me whenever she returns to the one constant in my therapy, like she's lighting and relighting the same tiny candle, the one message she's been banging in my head this entire time. "Hiding your truth is holding you back. When you can let it go by opening up and talking about it, only then will you truly be free of the war Soda."_

 _And I knew that's what she was gonna say. Maybe I just had to hear it one last time._

"Did you ever shoot at night? And what were the nights like over there anyway?" Pony asks, sprawled out bored on top of his sleeping bag, his arms bent, hands clasped behind his head. Darry's crawling to the corner stuffing socks where the rain's found a way in and the thunder threatens and growls, restless.

I roll to my side and face my little brother, his eyes searching and forever curious. "Depends, if I was on patrol or not. But it was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, and I mostly stayed real still and listened, got real good at decipherin' sounds, or sometimes I was on a mission and I walked or even crawled all night for a sneak attack, and sometimes I just sat there and tried not to think about home, and oh, sometimes, on a crazy night we'd..."

I meet myself in my past again as the memories come bubbling up unforced, and Pony and Darry hang on every word.

xXx

Gunshot eyes and stolen breath, I jerk awake. Where the hell am I? Searching fingers meet a body, a live one next to me who groans and rolls over at my touch. The rhythmic breathing of men asleep can't compete with the pulsating waves of bullfrog croaks and all those other cries of the night roamers. I grab my head to keep it from splitting open and I've gotta get outta here. I crawl out of my tent and out of my pants and out of my mind.

 _Wake me up Dad. Wake me up._

I walk until the earth gets cooler and mud rises up soft between my toes. I keep going where the moonlight meets the river and takes me in. I'm naked and waist deep, back to water, back to birth, back to where I started.

I'm a broken man, a stolen life, a walking sin. Nothing but a mother's disgrace and a father's fear. They gave everything they had to keep me good. But nothing could set me straight, not her Bible, not his belt.

 _Christ Almighty Soda why can't you keep that mouth shut boy?_

Because I asked for it.

Palms up against the flow of the current, wrists exposed. Burning flesh, a human ashtray.

 _We got a live wire here Doc. Self harming with his own cigarettes. Fought us. We had to restrain him. Had to._

Yes, tie me up, hold me down. You have no idea who all I've burned.

Can water cleanse? I sink down and let it take all of me, the air escaping my lungs through my nose. My eyes and mouth closed tight against my past and this river and all my father ever was. I hear my mother praying feverishly over my sins.

 _But I don't wanna burn in hell momma...Soda baby, you best fall to those knees and ask His forgiveness..._

How long can you hold your breath before your life is snuffed out? I start to struggle, my head whips wildly on its own, back and forth, back and forth, my brain begging, my body clawing for air. I need to hold it just a little longer.

I rise to surface, head thrown back and mouth open wide, greedy for air, water flings and splashes like fireworks against an inkblot sky, each droplet its own universe, reflecting light from the moon like crystals. Glory's crystals.

 _An eye for an eye though ain't that right?_

And I'm still a killer when the baptism fails.

In the eastern sky there's a hazy slip of pink and somewhere I hear the meditative praying of the Holy Rosary and the sound of a wild blues harmonica. The sound of a maniacal laugh. It takes a moment for me to realize the shrieking laughter is coming out of me.

I know where forgiveness lay.

* * *

It's our last night. We're sick of fish so we pass our one can of Spaghettios around. Darry's spoonfuls are huge and he ends up wiping out half the can on one turn.

"Damn Darry save some for the rest of us," I complain, eyeing what's left when it gets back to me.

"Pony you can have my share," Soda says, leaning back in one of our three lawn chairs that circle the fire, "I ain't all that hungry."

I've been wondering if something's going on with him since he showed back up to camp this morning, wet and naked. But except for this turndown of food, he's been acting pretty normal today and besides, skinny-dipping's nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to Sodapop Curtis.

The sticks crackle and burn and the smoke snakes up and around us, our protector against the no-see-ums and mosquitos. Beyond our smoky veil, they're dined upon by the twilight bats that swoop and dive down, putting on their show of aeronautics.

It's a relaxing evening listening to the nightbirds call, mostly cause it's over soon, we made it, we survived our trip and tomorrow brings the comforts of home. River water just doesn't get the job done. I need a shower. I need a shave. My beard's already past the itchy phase, but I can't keep my hands out of it and that's what's driving me crazy. "Darry you look pretty cool with a beard," I compliment him to make up for bitching over the food.

"Really?" and like me, he runs his hand through a week's worth of growth. "Maybe I'll see what Liz thinks." Something tells me she's gonna give that one a thumbs down but I don't say it.

I look at Soda who's studying the stars, and I'm feeling a bit of peace. Like maybe we achieved what we set out to do this week of roughing it, and Soda found a part of himself again. I think we all did.

"I'm bettin' you can't wait to get your hands on Grip," Darry says right before he spits his tobacco into the flames. And I know we've both not brought up our nephew this entire time since we know how much Soda misses him, but tonight I guess Darry feels he's close enough to having him back, and at the mention of his name Soda's face lights up.

"You can't imagine," he says and folds his very empty arms. "We're takin' him to the doctor this week 'bout his eyes but it's not lookin' like they'll change."

"I hope they stay that way," I tell him and mean it, "I think it's cool as hell to have two different colored eyes. It fits him ya know?" Darry nods in agreement.

We talk a little more about Grip, then we go over our week, talk about what we'll miss, all the things we sure as hell won't, we shoot the breeze and laugh and joke around and we get Soda talking again. Get him to open up just a little bit more about his experiences. And this week, I think it's done him a world of good. My God are we actually getting somewhere?

"Did I ever tell you 'bout this soldier in my platoon?" Soda starts up and Darry and I immediately lock in. "Man, he was somebody you wouldn't wanna know."

Soda drags a stick around and through, tracing the heap of glowing embers and ashes, then stares when he sets the end aflame, the reflection lapping at his dark eyes. And something tells me this story is not the kind we're used to. Knowing the reputation of Tiger Force, I can't imagine the kind of people Soda fought beside. I glance briefly at Darry whose eyes are glued to our brother, and I know he's wondering if Soda might just be about to open up and share a little bit of that darkness.

We're ready. We can take it.

Soda's the best kind of storyteller, leaning forward and engaging, bringing you along on his adventures, and tonight around the campfire, he tells his tale almost like a ghost story.

"It was a free kill zone. Any villager left was our enemy. Our orders by then were to take anything that moved. Shoot first and ask questions later."

A pack of coyotes start their whooping and hollering, like banshees celebrating a fresh kill and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Soda's chewing at his nails and faintly says, "You wouldn't believe the kinda things that guy did," and now it's almost like he's fallen into a trance of sick remembering. He finally shakes his head like he's wiping it away and returns to us, clearer and in the present. "I watched him kill a woman once. Hell a girl. Couldn't have been no more than eighteen, nineteen. But hey I don't know, they're all little bitty over there."

My eyes dart over to Darry, and he hasn't moved a muscle. Soda goes on, "I mean, she was hidin' out with her rifle cocked. She'd have fired a round smack dab between our eyes had we not found her first." He takes his pointer finger and taps above his nose, then glides it along his left scarred eyebrow.

"But that guy, that soldier, man he grabbed that girl from behind and she may've been some rebel but then again, maybe she was just some kid scared shitless, and he beat her skinny arm against the wall until she dropped her weapon. Sure as hell the bones were shattered and broken." He shifts in his seat and takes in a deep breath and the Glory tattoo on his ribs rises and falls with the motion. "He had his arm around her throat in some choke hold, and his hand was coverin' her mouth. We couldn't afford her screamin' and cryin'. It'd give us away. And then I see the soldier's thumb and finger risin' up to pinch her nose closed. He smothered that girl right then and there."

My stomach drops about fifty stories and I swallow at my nausea. Darry's still frozen, his eyes a little wider.

Soda shakes his head like he's just now hearing this news himself, at the same time we are. "Ya know, it's one thing to kill someone fifty yards away standin' behind a gun, but to do it with your bare hands? And a woman?"

"God Soda, that's terrible. Jesus. How long did it take her to die?" And I wince at my question and wonder why I even ask it.

Soda doesn't miss a beat. "I dunno. Felt like forever but it also felt real quick. He had her lifted up real easy, and I can still see her bare feet hangin, not reachin' the floor and they were wigglin' and jerkin' and movin' crazy in a panic and finally, well, finally they just...stopped."

I think we all three open our nostrils wide to take in the breath that was stolen from the strangled woman.

Soda looks as haunted as if he's still living that moment and his eyes keep darting between Darry and me.

"And you know what?" he asks the both of us, clawing his hands through his hair and grasping for dear life, "That soldier was me."

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton

 _Many thanks to anyone who might still be reading this story :)_


	22. Chapter 22

_I'm not going to lie. Writing has been a major struggle lately. It's been since October I've been running away from this chapter. I hope to never let that much time pass between updates again. And in this chapter about forgiveness, I hope that you'll forgive me..._

 **THE TRIP**

PART XXII

I'm gutted by the vile confession that can't possibly be mine. Shouldn't be mine.

And my God I was so wrong to believe the truth would set me free. Truth, that devil-woman has stripped me raw again, laid me out, drawn and quartered. I can't stand to look up and see my brothers staring, their light colored eyes that pierce the darkness of my own. I can't stop shivering. And my hands can't stop the spiders from crawling out of my mouth. Again I whisper the secret that stole a young girl's breath, "That soldier was me."

* * *

"That soldier was me," he whispers on shaky breath and ground.

And it's finally out. The guilt that my little brother choked down for years has escaped him, and now I'm able to see more clearly what we've been up against. All the denial, the addictions and breakdowns finally belong to a story. And suddenly I'll be a better fighter for it, smarter and more powerfully succinct, now that Soda's defined the root of what's been haunting him.

Only for a second do I freeze at the shock of his admission, but then I'm instinctively leaning forward to reach him in the same heartbeat, because I always knew it was something so much larger than what we were able to see. And he looks so young now drowning in grief and shame, folded inward, his bare feet perched on a rickety lawn chair, his knees pulled up and against him. I doubt he can even feel my hand that squeezes his leg, or hear me tell him, "Soda, stop it, you didn't do nothin' wrong." My words just float untouched above him. And I'm at a loss for something else to say right now, while the cicadas chant in all their urgency.

 _Anytime now Ponyboy. A little help here?_

Of course Soda wouldn't hear us anyway as his fingers dig into his tortured face while he keeps repeating, "Please don't look at me...please? Please don't look," and I want to stand up and scream my curses against this fucked up world we're living in. _Damn_ this war. And all that's been forsaken.

I wince against a pain so sharp I can hardly take a breath. I've never needed Dad more than I do right now. I look for his help out at the black beyond, and my eyes are pulled to the moonlit silhouette of the wild and jagged treetops. Where is he now? Does he live among these woods that time forgot? Does he wade the waters or ride along the western wind? I thought we'd find him on this trip. But the closer we are tonight, the further he seems. Or maybe I've finally realized only his ghost is left for me to chase.

I'm startled when Soda suddenly jumps up. Worried at how close he is to the fire, I'm beside him before he can even think of leaping in either direction, because right now I wouldn't put anything past him, so I wrap him in my arms. "Darry don't," he struggles now inside my strongest hold, a hold over him that a thousand kills could never break. And once he understands I'm nowhere near to letting go, he falls limp against my chest, whimpering like some wounded animal as I sternly remind him it's not his fault.

"Soda, I'm the one that told you to get mean. What'd I say before you left, huh? That I didn't care who or how you killed as long as you came home," and suddenly I'm so grateful to Soda. So thankful he followed my instruction all those years ago. I lift his chin up and force him to look me in the eye. "Dammit listen. You did what I told you to do, and you did it for Pony and me," and I briefly glance at Ponyboy who's still sitting quiet in the flaming shadows, spooked wordless I suppose. And I choke on what I'm about to say.

"I would've...God I would've _died_ Soda. I couldn't have lived if you didn't come home," and I'm shaking because I know it's true.

* * *

I know Darry holds me up. I know he's trying to make what I've done okay, but none of his words could ever make that possible. I concentrate on both of my fists that grasp the grey, sweat soaked material of his t-shirt, listen to the rumble of the voice in his throat and feel the way his beard scratches my temple when his jaw moves. "Dad woulda told ya the same Soda. It's war. You did what you had to do," but all I can remember is Dad teaching us to stand whenever a woman enters the room, to always walk on the side of her that's closest to the street, that she should never have to pull out her chair or open a single door. And the most important one. "Boys, ain't no kinda man that lays his hands on a woman in anger. No kinda man at all _."_

 _Well, Dad, your son's gone off and killed one._

And even Darry's arms can't keep me falling right back into that night of terror and a split second choice, a choice that can only be driven by a man's gut. The night I found out what I'm really made of. And who I'm not. The night that'll forever define me.

 _No sleep for days on end but the good ole US Army has its ways. For our platoon, steroid injections are mandatory in a long patrol and we line up robotically for the needle._

 _"What will it be today Curtis? Arm or ass?" Greer gives me a choice in how I want it, and because the muscles in both my arms are sore from being poked all week, I turn my back to him and shove one side of my pants down. I tense against the tiny bee sting but imagine all my whining joints and aching muscles opening up and out, rejoicing in the anointment._

 _And it's become routine to hold out my hand for the speed Lieutenant Burl sends along on every mission. Before I toss back a swig from a nearby canteen to send the bitter pill down the hatch, Sargeant Dawson gruffly yells out, "Crush it up Curtis, you know the drill," cause he'd always rather we snort it instead._

 _Through a rolled up dollar I sniff the pinkish dust up my nose, and I'm ready for my orders now. At point position, I'm sent ahead in a fiery sunset, to scout the darkest terrains, to make sure it's safe for my team to launch our latest attack, and to smoke the dragons out of their holes._ _And as I lick my lips and slither through the thicket, with my nerves taut as a tightly tuned string, buzzing from a medicinal cocktail, I feel like I could reach up and punch the moon. I silently laugh at the thought, and my pal the moon winks back. He's been good to me tonight._

 _It's been several hours and I'm still alert and aware, my senses wide open. I can hear the buzz of the enemy inside the inner lairs from yards away, where guerrilla strategies are discussed in the clanging discord of their mother tongue that I'll never understand or forget, and I take my post to guard my boys who round the corner for the back. I crouch low and my muscles are powerhouses itching to be used. Not yet, I slow myself._

 _The stars reflect off the dog tag that's fastened to my boot, and I can feel the metal of its match that dangles from my neck. I had to come to Vietnam to find out why they come in pairs. And why a Tiger's made to wear one tucked down beneath his laces. You never know where your limbs might scatter. I wiggle my still-intact toes to keep them from going numb and my tongue runs along my back tooth that got knocked loose last night._

 _A rush runs through my cells. There's a rustling, as distinguishable as a microscopic shift in air, coming from the wooden outbuilding that sits catty-corner from the hut. I use the scope of my rifle to scan the open loft. Nothing. Probably a pillaging rat after the drying rice. But something tells me to go and check the pitched shadows. Cause in this operation, I can't afford no mistakes._

 _I'm a little startled it's a woman outlined by the moonlight, though I shouldn't be. Some of our worst attacks have been those that took us by surprise. And nothing's more surprising than a lady with soft curves pulling an AK-47 out of her panties._

 _This one's in prone position, already lined up for the hit on my men, and though I have a thousand clear shots to take her out right now, my trigger finger stays steady, unable to fire when we're just about to set the sneak attack in motion. I don't have the luxury of making noise to fight this fight. She can't hear me, she doesn't know she's prey for the hunter who's slipping up from behind._

 _My pupils are dilated, my skin breathes on its own, my body's aligned and poised, and just before Nuniz and Harper are entering her field of vision at target position right below the south window, I yank her so violently into me, she doesn't have the time or the wits to scream before I can cover her mouth and beat her gun away._

 _Don't fight this honey. Please don't fight me, I silently beg._

 _But this girl's a pistol. I can tell it's not her first ambush. She brings her one good arm back and the broken shard of glass that's tucked between her fingers slices my left eyebrow. But I don't feel a thing. I jerk her into a tighter hold, so tight my arms shake, and pray for her to stop._

 _I don't wanna have to do this. Don't make me do this. Be good for me baby and quit fighting me._

 _And when she uses everything she's got to make the noises that'll surely signal her men who sit like unknowing pigs for the slaughter, I panic. I hoist her up in a chokehold and take away her sound, her breath. When her foot gives its last and final jerk, I collapse with her to the wood slat floor, and the once kind moon looks down and eerily nods his approval._

"Shhh," Darry comforts me but I didn't know I was crying and I sure didn't know I'd dropped to the ground. "Soda there was nothing you could've done man. You don't know who you can trust, who you're fightin' over there. That's what makes it guerrilla warfare. You said yourself she would've shot you right between the eyes. It was you or her. _Your men_ or her. You had guys dependin' on you."

But it's not Darry I'm looking to at this moment. It's not his stare I catch through the gap between my big brother's shoulder and where it meets his neck. My sobs are swiftly clamped and locked away and my face organizes itself into a blank but weary canvas. I pull away from this brother and on guilty knees, look to the one who hasn't moved positions or given a single word. A little brother who for some reason thought I was worthy of his respect and admiration. And I slowly crawl over to him, each hand, each finger grasping the dirt and muck along the way, until I come before him bent and broken.

"I'm so sorry Pony. Forgive me," I manage to say on a dying gasp before I clasp my arms around his waist, turn my head to the side and lay it in his lap, as a kind of sacrifice for the altar, or perhaps the guillotine. With my neck exposed, Ponyboy has the power for either.

I'm a fool to think he could ever forgive this. Forgive me. Wet lashes shut and my chin starts trembling when I think of everything we aren't and never will be again. The mourning of who we were settles hard and swift in the deepest parts of me. I've lost him. I've lost me. I've lost us all. Somewhere in Vietnam.

And my eyes flutter, my lips part to take in the breath of something different. Because a hand's starting to gently run along my head, fingers comb through my hair that sets off a tingle in the back of my neck, running down and threading through the length of my spine. And the voice that blankets the most injured parts of my soul is soft-spoken, is kind, is his. "Soda, there's nothin' to forgive."

I raise up and look at him, unsure if he could even mean these healing words. He might be scared of who I am now, saying anything to get me away from him and all his goodness. I shake my head no, but he doesn't flinch. He just leans closer and gives it to me straight and with clear distinction, as if he's put great thought and meaning into every word. "That girl? She never asked to be there and neither did you. Casualties of war. War is Hell. And, Soda, if I was with you that night, and it was between you and that girl, I'd have killed her myself."

Surely I'll never be whole but something feels different, feels loosened, some of the knots untangle and the shift in atmosphere is slight but definite. For the first time in three years, I start to wonder if there might still be hope for my salvation.

* * *

Who am I to question or judge Soda who kneels in front of me now? When once my own life depended on someone else's kill. Where would I be if Johnny had stopped to muse over the philosophical debate of whether or not there's ever a reason to take somebody out? I'm alive today cause he operated on instinct and gut reaction, much like Soda.

I know how it feels to be strangled of air. But I also know how it feels to be saved.

I can't read Soda at this point. I don't know if what I said has helped lessen his guilt that's plagued us all. He wipes a hand down his face and seems to pull himself together when he finally stands up and heads wordlessly to the tent. And Darry's kicking up the dust to smother the last of our fire.

I feel like I shut my eyes for only a second, but when I open them, the first light of dawn's stretching an arm across the horizon, and Darry's already loading up the car. I walk off to take a piss in the outer perimeter of this camp that served as home for a week, then head over to my brother and lend him a hand.

We don't talk as we haul equipment and trash through the dark of early morning, wanting to leave this place as we found it, this somewhat hollowed ground of our parents and ancestors, that somehow gave Soda the strength to open up. And I have no idea if our conversation with him will continue, or if it'll be left here forever, to be whispered through the trees.

The tent's all that's left so I crawl inside and shake Soda awake. At first it's blank, but his face begins to fill in, painted by the details he's starting to remember the details of last night. Darry sticks his head in and urges us with a bit more force. "C'mon y'all help me roll these blankets and get this tent packed. We gotta get a move on."

"Yeah, let's go home," Soda says softly to both of us, and the soothing, familiar sounds of Tulsa ride on the tail of his words.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton

 _Thank you for reading. And thank you especially to those people who've actually taken the time to be so kind and encouraging in their reviews. You can't imagine how that's helped._


	23. Chapter 23

**THE TRIP**

PART XXIII

"How does it go again? Red sky at night," I mumble to myself as the eastern sky lights my rearview mirror, "sailor's delight?" One foot bears down on the clutch, my other gives a little more gas when the mud puts up a last minute fight.

"Red sky at morning, sailor's warning," Soda answers me, nodding toward the thunderheads to the west, waiting all mammoth and deceivingly white, and I'm surprised I was even talking out loud. "Mom used to say that, 'member Pony?" I feel his hand on my shoulder, and can picture so clearly Mom leaning over a sink of dirty dishes, looking out the window above it, forever mindful of those backyard skies.

"Whenever the sunrise is fiery like this, " Soda explains it just like she would, "it's a safe bet we gotta storm chasin' us." He gives me half a smile, "Or, I guess in this case, we're doin' the chasin'," he says once I swing the wheel left toward home, toward the rougher skies. Our tires finally hit pavement, civilization, and there's relief in the smooth blacktop of the main roads.

A million thoughts about last night swirl inside. Soda's three warning taps on the dashboard pull me out of my head. "Slow it down a little Pony. See that cop on the overpass?" and that tiny speck he's pointing to looks like nothing more than a gray dot to me, too far away for anyone to notice, but I shouldn't be surprised he'd find it. He's been trained to track anything that might be lurking. I wonder what it feels like to always be on guard. To not be able to come off that kind of watchfulness, that intensity. It must feel like a kind of paranoia in a way.

Darry's stretched sleeping across the back, lost to the world until he changes position, and you can see where the seat has marked one side of his face with pink splotches. He takes a strong breath in through his nose, and he's licking at the corner of his mouth when he flops over, working at the spit that was close to drooling out. "I don't think he got a wink of sleep last night," I'm telling Soda, who's craning his neck, watching our brother try to get comfortable.

"I don't think Darry's slept a full night since we lost Mom and Dad," Soda says with a kind of detached mournfulness. And it's just now occurring to me that he's right. He hasn't rested, not really, since then. From the second that policeman opened his mouth one winter night, Darry's paced a million sleepless steps right up to this last night, when Soda let his secret burn across the summer swamps, lit by a deadwood fire.

I glance over at Soda and wonder what he's thinking, now that the truth is out there. Even if we never bring it up again, the truth sits in this car, a hitchhiker. We have no choice but to bring it back to Tulsa with us.

His thumb and forefinger fiddle with the dial, flying through the static in search of a station. It seems like he's okay, but it's always hard to tell how Soda's really feeling. I want to believe his chest feels lighter today. I want to believe that he can start forgiving himself. I want to believe that Darry can maybe get a good night sleep for once, that we've almost got Soda back from a war that followed him all the way home.

Through the crackle a voice erupts from the radio, more solemn than the maniacal chatter of a typical deejay … _found dead several days ago in a Paris apartment at the age of twenty-seven. This next tune is for all you Doors fans, to fit this wild weather that's rolling in, and to honor the great Jim Morrison…_

"No way," Soda and I both say at the same time, on the same breath, as Riders on the Storm floats inside our car and mingles with the lightning on the horizon. And I can't believe the Lizard King's dead, another rock star taken, and I don't even need to hear what got him. I swallow hard and look at Soda, who's shaking his head at the news, and to me it feels like the cold slap of reality, it sounds like the bell-toll of a close call. How easily we might've lost Soda all those dark nights he played too near the edge, how he could've ended up like Hendrix or Janis, or now Morrison.

But we haven't lost him. Soda's still here. He's in this car today. He's sitting right beside me, and he closes his eyes and he slips into the song. _Into this house we're born. Into this world we're thrown._ The song set against the storm outside the windshield draws a surreal scene, dreamlike. _There's a killer on the road._ I'm surprised Soda's lips move with these particular lyrics, his body carrying the essence of each note. _If ya give this man a ride, sweet memory will die. Killer on the road._

Is that how Soda sees himself?

The deejay lets the song play out, all seven minutes, right through to the last roll of thunder. Darry woke up somewhere around minute five. It's not until the end I tell him the bad news we'd just been given. He shrugs like it's no big deal and to him, I guess it's not. Darry's only got time to care about the people in his own world. Not some genius poet-singer, a druggie in leather pants. He's got his own addict to worry over and love.

"Mr. Mojo Risin. Man that sucks," Soda says with pure empathy. And I feel it too, despite Darry's nonchalance. But Soda's already moving on to the next hit, something more upbeat.

"I guess I did kinda dig Love Her Madly though," Darry offers up. I smile. Darry can be as cool as Soda when he wants to be, just in a different kind of way.

I notice I'm driving close to seventy but Darry hasn't said anything about my speed and Soda must not be sniffing out any pigs. But I slow it down when the skies open up and the rain's making it slick and hard to see. Darry points to an exit sign and tells us he's hungry. And the riders on the storm come into harbor.

xXx

"God, I wonder if people can smell us." The extra stares from the waitresses have me wondering, but the truckers keep right on eating, their heads down in their lunch plate specials.

Darry, sitting in the booth across from mine, casually pulls the neck of his t-shirt over the bridge of his nose, and conducts a sniff test underneath his clothes. "Just smells like river water, we're good," he assures me and lets his shirt drift back in place, now stretched out cotton revealing his collarbone. "But we _look_ like we just got back from burying a dead body in the woods," and I'm thinking he's probably right, cause if I didn't know us, I might say we look like trouble.

Our food's already come and Soda's still not out. "Should I go check on him?" I ask, shaking ketchup all over my fries and then handing the bottle to Darry.

"Nah, he took a newspaper with him," is all Darry needs to say, but I'll never lose that impulse to make sure my brother's not snorting or tripping or whatever else he might be doing when he takes too long in a restroom.

"So, last night huh?" I finally bring it up through a mouthful of burger, and I take another big bite before I've even swallowed this one, cause I can't eat it fast enough, my jaws ripping at the meat like some junkyard dog.

"I know, pretty crazy," Darry says before gulping the last of his water, the ice crashing against the glass he's drained, signaling a refill from a waitress who's immediately on top of it. "Did he say anything to you while I was asleep?" And then to the lady who's pouring, he makes sure to look up at her and say a kind "Thank you." She winks a crinkled blue-shadowed eyelid, and I guess...Lorraine... must have a thing for rough looking dudes, cause today, Darry looks about as mean as they come.

"No, but he's been actin' pretty normal far as I can tell. Same ole Soda." Darry's nodding, actually able to understand me despite my words being muffled by my stuffed up mouth of food, and he has a kind of hopeful look in his eyes.

"I think this was huge. I think it's what's been eatin' Soda alive and now that he's... never mind," and Darry's eyes drop to the lemon he's squeezing into his drink.

"Hell yes, real food," Soda announces loudly, walking with the paper tucked under his arm, just as comfortable as if he's in his own house, and finally a few greasy heads are turning from their plates to eyeball this wild looking cat who's slinking across their turf today. He slaps the paper down and tells us "Oakland beat the Angels last night, one-nothin, a _twenty_ inning shut-out."

Darry's eyebrows raise. This news is far more interesting to him than any rock star. "That's Vita Blue, man, he's a badass on the mound."

"Louisiana boy," I remind my brothers, "and a southpaw too," I say specifically to Soda, who snaps with his left hand and points at me, appreciating the mention.

"Damn," Darry complains, always stretching his one syllable curse words into two, "of course I missed it."

"Yeah, and get this, Cowan fanned _six_ times, God he sucks so bad." Soda's mixing his meatloaf together with his mashed potatoes and gravy. "Yessir, forty-three strikeouts between 'em." Soda picks up his plate and leaves my side to sit by Darry in his booth, and I slide his placemat and drink across to help him. Musical chairs is common when you dine with a lefty. We constantly have to shift positions to where our elbows don't bang into each other when we eat. You'd think by now, we'd have it all figured out.

"Forty fuckin' three?" I can't tell if Darry's more amazed at this record or more pissed that he couldn't watch it. Probably more pissed.

"Forty...fuckin'...three," Soda echoes back, then looks up with a full fork by his mouth, "Wait, what day is it?" but this time he stuffs in the meat before he gets an answer.

"Saturday," I assure him anyway, and flip the paper over to double check. I glance down and see that Morrison's girlfriend found him dead in her bathtub almost a week ago. I think about all the times Soda locked himself in our bathroom. I look up and stare at him now talking to Darry, not believing the lowest of places we were in last night, when today their baseball conversation floats around me, and it feels normal. It feels right. And a kind of peace settles in my chest.

"Hey," shouts a diner, way at the other end of the long lunch counter and surely he's calling someone else. We don't know a soul in these parts. "Hey, faggots," he yells in our direction, his bear-like hands cupped around his mouth, and I look behind me to find nobody, so now I'm pretty certain he's referring to us. That we're the faggots.

"Oh great," I sigh, my cheeseburger sitting like a brick in my gut, and Darry's warning us to blow it off. That it ain't worth it. Just looking at Darry reminds me how exhausted I am. We're all way too weathered for a fight.

Soda's twisted half his body to see who's trying to start shit with us. "Turn back around Soda," I hiss between my teeth. But the asshole's starting to make his way over, and it looks like there's no getting out of having words with this Arkansas redneck. His belt buckle's bigger than his head, and his shirt sleeves are rolled up, revealing some pretty tight guns. He's gotta be middle aged but he looks as fit as any of us, even Darry. My adrenaline jumpstarts my blood, my muscles start waking up, tensing, all my senses heightened. This douche bag we can take easy, but I can't be sure how much backup he's got in this joint.

Surprisingly, the psycho passes by our table with a sneer and stands at the cash register instead, waiting to pay his check. I can make out USMC in faded green ink across his Popeye-sized forearm and Soda's already eyeing it. I let out my bridled breath and wonder what that was all about, but now he's talking about us loudly, to anyone who'll listen. Something about "long haired queers" and "flag burnin' hippies" and then, "those little punks never had to serve." We both look to Soda when he says that, and Soda's lip is starting to tug up at the corner, obviously amused by how wrong this loser is. And he's still going on, "Naw they're too busy lightin' the grass... and puffin' the peters."

Soda's short laugh explodes across the restaurant and Lorraine cracks a smile, and her gum.

"You a Marine?" Soda asks him gruffly, right after his laugh stops on a dime and his eyes narrow. "Army here. What'd you serve? Two? Korea?"

And my knee's bobbing fast, my heart's racing, cause I want to go ahead and punch out some teeth. Darry's quiet and cool, calculating, but letting Soda take the lead. And the cowboy marine saunters over with a threatening grin, plants two palms flat on our table and leans in on his pock scarred arms.

"Well well well," he says in as much condescension as an idiot can muster, "what we got here? A real life G.I. Joe? Coulda fooled me." Soda looks unbothered, untouched, in that weird kind of calm before a fight. But now the guy's getting too close to Soda's face and I'm starting to burn all over. "Son, I fought in a war we actually won," and I can feel Soda's energy completely shift, darken. "Shoulda known this generation of pussies... "

Before he can finish, before I have time to catch the plates and silverware from waterfalling into my lap, Darry's already reached up and grabbed this cocksucker in one fluid motion, dragged him down across our table and beat his head hard three times against it. Jagged trails of blood blossom from the Marine's nose and seep into his buzz cut, and he can't possibly know what hit him. I look around on high alert to make sure there's nobody else ready to jump in, and most people are just looking over at us, mildly interested in this sudden afternoon entertainment. Lorraine's visibly impressed, but her hand hovers frozen over the phone.

Darry's fingers, bronzed and nicked up from our week outside, grip the man's scalp and he yanks him to the side, forcing him to turn towards Soda. "Apologize to my brother," Darry growls and I can't make out much, but Soda looks disturbed. All of a sudden Darry's jerked the man's face in my direction. "And apologize to my other brother," he seethes and I look up at Darry a little confused. Darry, his jaw clenched, tacks on, "For gettin' gravy on his shirt."

I try to maintain my tough look while the man stutters his apology, and as somewhat comical as this has become, I see that Soda isn't enjoying any of it, his brow all furrowed. Instead, he wraps his hand around Darry's flexed arm and says softly, "Darry, he's a Vet."

Darry might be lost in his violent rage, but once Soda gives him those sad, concerned eyes, he lets the Marine go, and both his hands are up immediately, signifying that he's done. Lorraine lets go of the phone to grab for a broom and the cook in a splattered apron shouts, "Pay up and get the hell out."

Darry's paying, apologizing for the mess, giving Lorraine a couple extra bucks for her troubles, and I couldn't be prouder of him.

The Marine, foul mouthed and bigoted and all kinds of wrong, sits down to tend to his nose with a dozen paper napkins, head thrown back. He doesn't deserve this grace at all when Soda bends down and speaks low near a bloodstained ear, "C'mon man, semper fi right? Ain't that what y'all are about?" He stands back up tall, and squeezes the broad Marine shoulder beneath him, Soda's voice so very genuine, "Semper fi, my brother," and then he nods for Darry and me to follow him out.

And I couldn't be prouder.

* * *

"Shoot, I left his paci in the car," and I'm pretty sure a dozen other things I've forgotten as I hand over the two-ton diaper bag. There's a whole lot of equipment and planning that go into taking a baby anywhere. "I'll run get it. It'll only take a sec."

Gloria swings the massive bag on her shoulder as easily as she would her purse, and looks up at me from Grip's neck, where she's covered every square inch with kisses. "Oh don't worry about it, I've got a few extra, and I think a pack I haven't even opened." I nod. Of course. Why wouldn't I think to buy extra pacifiers? I stand there empty handed in the doorway, while she holds everything. "Wanna come in?"

We haven't talked, not really, since the night she asked for a divorce. She's already turned and gone inside the apartment, fully expecting me to follow her. I do, and close the door behind me. Everything still looks the same of course, but it doesn't feel like my living room anymore. But I guess it never did. Maybe we could start over. Find a place that we could make ours. Glory's baby-talking, squeezing Grip, so happy to see him, and he's busy grabbing her necklace with chubby fingers and trying to mouth it. "Mommy missed you so so so much."

I walk over to take the heavy bag she's still holding. "Here lemme help you with that," and I lift the straps from her bare shoulders, and have to stop myself from letting my hand linger too long on soft skin. I start walking the bag to Grip's little nook back in our room, well, Glory's room now, and figure I maybe oughta respect that. I look around and put it on the coffee table instead.

"How'd he do last night?"

I think about not telling her he had a rough night, that he kept waking up crying, was out of sorts without her. That sleeping in my bed right up next to me wasn't good enough. "I think he really missed his momma." I tell her the truth. And there's a relief in that.

Grip's slung on her hip now. She looks at me, and I put my hands in my pockets while she stares. Her blouse is almost see-through and sleeveless, its laces untied, revealing her braless, more natural cleavage, where a beaded string of turquoise pools. She's got some Indian looking bracelet on her upper arm, cuffing a thin and barely defined bicep. She looks sexy and Bohemian. I wet my lips. She looks good.

"So how was camping? I still can't believe how tan you are, lucky dog," and I glance down at my arms and remember Vietnam, when I lived an entire life outside. "Really Soda, that's cool you and your brothers got to go away for awhile and just...relax."

"Yeah," I say softly, scratching the back of my neck, "somethin' like that." In a million years, I could never put into words what all happened to me out there.

I look at her standing that way, beautiful with our son, and I'll do anything to get her back. I can't take it that the three of us aren't a family.

"I know it's gonna take awhile for you to forgive me." I start with that, but she won't hear any of it, not even letting me finish, groaning, her eyes rolling, dismissing me.

"Soda, please, I don't wanna talk about that, not tonight." She heads for the kitchen, calling behind her, "You want a drink? Made a fresh pitcher of iced tea." I can hear her moving all over the kitchen, accomplishing everything with one free arm.

"No thanks, I gotta run." And I do. I hear the creak of the high chair, the click of its strap. She's coming back, and sits on the arm of the couch in front of me.

"Really? I thought you might want to stay awhile." She bites her bottom lip when her gaze falls on my belt buckle and then below it. She's got one bare foot drawn up casually, her knee wrapped in the crook of her elbow, and it's no accident that her loose skirt's hiked up, or that she subtly opens her legs enough that I can take a peek between her thighs. "Maybe I could find you a little something you could eat," and in a true Pavlov response, my cock twitches.

"I can't," I breathe and it pains me to say it, "I've actually got a meeting tonight." And maybe this way's for the best. The smartest move. Glory always wants most what she can't have.

I ask to take a rain check and walk past her for the kitchen to kiss my boy goodbye. The sting of letting him go never lessens.

Next thing i know I'm sliding into my car, driving on auto pilot across town, lost under street lights and hoping to God this might be an actual first step in putting us back together.

xXx

I wasn't lying. I have group tonight. And I don't really know what's pulled me here after almost a year of not showing.

All the butterflies I'd left in this building return to me, nervous but familiar, and my footsteps are hollowed out echoes down a darkened hallway. At the end of the waxed corridor, the light spills out from the classroom where we meet and I can hear them getting ready to start. Chairs are dragging, throats are clearing and conversations are drawing closed when Dr. Klein begins the night with whatever quote he's pulled out of a self-help book or the bible. Tonight's wisdom sounds more along the lines of a fortune cookie.

I'm thankful I missed the mingling at the beginning and sneak in through the back, find an empty seat in the half-circle of folding chairs and pull off my baseball hat, spin it around one finger. Dr. Klein gives me a surprised smile. I answer with a half-ass peace sign.

Like all the times before, I lay low, listen but don't look up as the men take turns in introducing themselves, proudly listing all their credentials, as if they belong more to those than their own names. We're showered with ranks and stations and military units and they all blend together.

My turn has chased me like a burning wick around the circle until it's almost landed at my chair. The guy next to me fires up and I think about ducking out to the bathroom, but before I know it the room is quiet and every eye's on me. My blood rushes inside my ears. I rub my hands back and forth on my thighs, the denim friction heating up my palms.

C'mon Soda, you've done this before. Just make it quick. The bare minimum. No bombs to drop. Just a flyover. That's all.

"Yeah...um...Soda Curtis, Private, First Class, Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol." There. That wasn't so bad, but instead of moving on to the next, nobody looks away and only now do I realize my body's still poised to go further, my mouth still open, like it has something else to say. The room spins and I look around at all these men, these survivors. I hear Darry telling me I had no choice, I feel Pony's grace and forgiveness.

I draw in a quivering breath.

"Of the 101st division," and I close my eyes and lick my lips, breathe in and out, "the 327th Infantry."

 _Young girl's breath is stolen. A soldier's trembling hand draws her eyelids closed. A rumpled dress for him to straighten out, hair to tidy up, to tuck behind the ears. Her ears. A thin and dainty lobe rubbed between a thumb and two fingers, a knife. A knife that won't get drawn. Not this kill. Not for her. Bending down, a boy's aching lips brush against the deathly cold forehead, his dirge-like prayer cut through by the blood from a split brow and the shells of distant mortar._

My eyes open and I look to see where I might land.

I whisper to the room, to my parents, to the universe. "I'm Tiger Force?"

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton, Riders on the Storm and Love Her Madly by the Doors

 _Soda refers to Jim Morrison as 'Mr. Mojo Risin', the scrambled letters of Jim's name. This anagram is repeated several times in the Doors' song, LA Woman._

 _Thanks to all who still read this!_


	24. Chapter 24

_Mature content at chapter's end._

 **THE TRIP**

PART XXIV

"Where'd you get that cute accent anyways?"

I lay my money down and smile on reflex, "What accent?" I'm not in the mood to pick up nobody, even when she looks a little like the babe from Mod Squad. Nope, not when I'm trying to belong to Gloria, and Jesus definitely not after the day I had.

"It's like you have that Tulsa twang but...I don't know," and she's giggling real cute while she thinks about how I talk, "it's more drawn out, slow and thick. Kinda like you got tupelo honey drippin' off that tongue." Damn she's good, especially when she licks her bottom cherry lip and bites it.

Ain't no sense in explaining I was brought up by folks who both spoke their native tongue of Dixie, not when it'll only lead to me answering where they both are now. ""Fraid I don't know what you're hearin'. I'm all Tulsa, born and bred." It feels strange turning off my charm, like I've turned off all the houselights and I'm stumbling around my dark.

A hand swipes my dollar bills off the bar and shoves them back in my palm. "I told you tonight's on me," and Darry's arrived just in time, pulling out his wallet and being Darry. "I got us a table Soda, we don't gotta sit at the bar." He's eyeballing my Coke, probably wondering if there's Jack in it.

"How much we owe Miss?" he asks the lady in a gentleman's tone and Mod Squad's forgotten all about me now that Muscles showed up. I reach for the complimentary peanuts and throw a whole one in my mouth. Sucking the salty shell before it's broken by back teeth and an unforgiving jaw, I watch while my brother settles my tab, totally unaffected by the good looking broad who's asking how he got so strong. I wonder if he's that clueless and I shake my head at the poor bastard, but with the look he shoots me after he thanks her, I can see he ain't brain dead at all. He's completely aware of the flirting, but he must just be that taken, taken by Liz and their relationship. And I realize I want to be exactly like that. Taken.

He leads me to our table, and before I can even park my ass down on this chair, Darry asks me how my job hunt's going. I don't tell him that I put in an application down at Melton Trucking. He'd only start in on how a trucker's life gets lonely. That I'd be hauling freight cross country weeks on end and holidays too and then where would that leave me with Grip? Hell, now that I've talked myself out of the whole damn thing, maybe I don't need Darry's advice no more.

I realize I'm staring off at nothing when he clears his throat, and I quickly shrug and say "No bites yet." I shake my ice and toss back a cube, try to lighten the mood. "But hey, heard they're hirin' down at Gino's. Delivery tips and free pizza don't sound half bad, huh? Then maybe I could learn what they got in the secret sauce." My eyebrows dance across the table at him, but Darry doesn't catch them. He thinks I'm being serious.

"Soda, a pizza delivery boy can't be your only source of income." And I wonder when he's going to ask me back to work, but he just rubs the back of his neck and starts looking anxious about my life plan.

"Don't worry Darry, God, there's always the highway department," and I can tell he's remembering how much Dad worked himself to the bone digging them ditches on the side of the road in our early days. I push back against his silent criticism. "C'mon, what could be so bad 'bout an honest day's work out in the sun, making a decent wage with benefits? At least it'd be open air and not a windowless mill again."

"Yeah, Soda, kinda like a chain gang," and I stare at him looking me over, and no matter how he sees me, he's never really pushed me to be better than I am. Hands off when it comes to my direction, so unlike the control he's taken over Pony's life, becoming the mastermind behind his social experiment he's conducted on the Little Orphan Boy that Could. And I don't know why he hasn't asked to take me back as his grunt yet. Not that I want him to. I can make it on my own. Haven't I always? Made it alone.

Most of my raising was spent under a dad who disciplined, but never pressured me. Dad was proud with where our family stood. But I can't remember a time when Darry didn't want out. It's all he talked about in that little room we shared. And when it turned out he couldn't, he was gonna make sure he'd live through Ponyboy. And sometimes I get to feeling guilty, when I can't sleep and I start playing with all the what ifs, when I question would Ponyboy have actually gotten this far had Dad lived long enough to finish his rearing, free from the pressure that Darry brought? Who wants to admit their father may not've done as good of a job when it comes to academic paths? Or rather, he'd have done it differently, leaving Pony to his own reins. If Dad was still around, maybe Pony'd be a little more like me and a little less like Darry, less driven and not so damn hungry.

Not that he wouldn't still be a genius. But I know he could've been satisfied on our East side of the fence, a big fish in a small pond. And part of my guilt is because I sometimes wish for that, for Pony to be stuck instead of soaring. Relaxing into the world we come from, content with the simple things. Far as I can tell, Pony'd be just as happy staying right where he was, just as deep and still just as fascinated with life, the same starry-eyed poet, had Darry let him live among his own kind, my kind. I get mad at myself for entertaining such a thought, finding anything good about holding Pony back, and then I think about him heading to school instead of war and I'm immediately grateful for Darry's strict hand that steered our little brother away from me and right on out of here.

Darry changes the subject to something even more delightful. "So, how's therapy?" We haven't yet touched the night around the campfire. But I can still feel Darry's arms around me. Right now he's squinting at the menu, and everything that might annoy me about him suddenly softens and I can see him fully for all he is. My strong older brother who's saved me all my life.

"I went to group, and actually admitted I was part of Tiger Force." Tonight my admiration of Darry pulls me to open up and get honest. He's the only one I've truly let in on my path to healing. The only one I'd ever consider.

He looks interested, and politely sends the waitress away when she comes for our order. "Sorry, can you give us a minute?" He puts his elbows on the table and leans in. He sounds almost tender. "I didn't know you were havin' trouble with that. How'd it go?"

I think about the paralyzing fear of my admission, and then the non-reaction from the Vets as the person next to me continued on with their introduction, and all the jagged, delicate pieces of that moment settled into their places and smoothly passed on. And I'd made another step in the process, jumping through another hoop that'd been laid out for me. Lately I seem to be hitting all my marks, like I'm on auto pilot. "Funny thing is they hardly blinked an eye." I smile like I'm supposed to and Darry nods at this positive turn.

"Good Soda. Ya see? Nothin' to be scared about." He collects himself on a relieved exhale and he's back to studying his menu. And my God all I've wished for my whole life was to be as normal as Darry.

"Yeah, had another Lurp come up and talk to me after 'bout the Recondo School. We shared a couple laughs even."

 _"Brother, they drop you in that shit hole too?" His smile is crazed and I recognize everything about it. The cracks, the pain, the torture._

 _For the first time in a long time I grab on to my past and swing. "You bet your life," and only he knows what I mean in that answer, and we both laugh until the janitor's hanging his broom and flipping off the light._

* * *

It's at the ballpark where I can always find the deepest parts of summer, and tonight it's where I find Darry and his construction outfit taking on Tulsa Heating and Cooling. The park's newly installed electric lights buzz their daytime brilliance, confusing the pit of night in this one patch of diamond, and a car radio left running has a difficult time competing against the disturbed tree frogs, a pulsing assault from all directions.

I borrowed his truck tonight after promising to pick him up, but it seems I've come too early. He waves his mitt from the mound and calls out, "Sorry Pony, not much longer," and it's followed by a bunch of trash talk from both sides, these men who struggle to recapture their prime. For Darry, his prime's not yet so out of reach, and he doesn't seem that far from the star player kid he once was. Now without that competitive self-pressure that used to define him, I feel happier watching him play, at ease and joking around with his worker friends, spitting the tobacco he'll never give up, tugging at his hat before every pitch.

I tuck the keys down into my jean pockets and I don't mind at all to wait really. I sit back in the same spot where I used to watch my oldest brother all those summers ago, on the top row of the metal stands that've since replaced the old bleachers of warped and splintery wood.

A southern breeze works its velvet hands and suddenly the brutal daytime heat of summer seems almost worth it. For me, only the nights could bring the season's real, true worth. I close my eyes, listening to those faraway voices carried on the wind, my father's more distinct than all the rest. He still stands at his usual post against the left field's rusted chain link fence, eyes narrowed in and calling out to his boy wonder, his nerves and his pride for his first born on full display.

Can Darry still hear him too? Who knows, maybe he doesn't want to. The past we share is one and the same and yet, now I've come to learn, so very different.

But I hear my Southern father, and I'm drowning in the sweet of remembered popsicles, choking on the bitter of what could've been. Shouts are erupting when Darry runs to meet a ground ball, the dust devils biting at his heels. For a split second I see clearly the young boy my father used to watch. A current shoots through me, so familiar it melts into aching marrow, and it's not the first time I wonder how some of my more powerful memories were never really mine to begin with.

I stretch back and try and find the stars but the glare of the harsh white lights are blinding. Sweat's already dampening the back of my shirt but my date's long been dropped off and I don't have to worry about it now. I welcome it. The sweat. It makes me feel like I'm part of the Earth. The salt of the Earth; one of my father's highest compliments he'd seldom pay. Reserved for only those he admired most.

Sometimes I think about how he'd see his children now. As grown men. And I know which one of us he'd most likely deem worthy of such a title. His pride for all three isn't even a question. Hell, Darry's bulldozed this family through the tragedies of our years, and Dad would marvel at the strength of his oldest boy, most grateful for all that Darry carried in his place. But in Soda, even with his troubles and maybe because of them, Dad would find that elusive and earthy salt. It ran through my father and now it runs through Soda. Sometimes the most complicated people are really the most simple. Soda's struggles have always been tied to the pinnacle of his values. He hunts and stumbles and wrestles himself raw, walking the Earth unafraid and in search of that one thing so holy. And I haven't really figured out what it is yet, but I know for him it's sacred.

"You 'bout ready?" Darry's eyeing me while he absently slaps the hand of a passing teammate. "Good game Hawkins." The players are grabbing their equipment and their coolers, the sound of clicking cleats fill the lot as they head back to their cars, back to their wives and their children and their bills, leaving their summer youth on this ball field till the next time.

Before reaching the truck, a guy hollers to Darry from a passing car. "Yo Curtis, just tell your little brother to call me sometime this week."

"Will do man," Darry's ducking to peer in the darkened vehicle and points at his friend, "and hey, I really appreciate it Tommy."

I ease behind the wheel while Darry throws his stuff in the bed of the truck and climbs in with sock feet, and I wait quietly to see if he's going to let me know what that was all about. And I wonder if I'm the little brother who needs to call Tommy this week and what the hell for.

"Thanks for pickin' me up Po'Boy." He yanks off his cap and leans toward the draft from the open window when I start picking up speed. His AC's on the fritz these days.

"No problem, thanks for the truck," and I roll down my window to help blast the air flow for the ride home. The gusts make it too loud to hear anything, and my eardrums pound and balloon against the pressure.

"Who was that guy in the Pinto?" I ask him when we reach silence and our house that sits forlorn without any lights on.

"Tommy Kavanaugh. Told him Soda's lookin' for work. And he knows the chief up at the fire station. Says they're needin' fighters." Neither of us moves to get out, and the muted radio glows amber. "I mean, I figure he still don't wanna work under me no more." I don't miss the twinge of hurt in his tone, but it's gone before it ever sticks its landing, and he's already moved on. "Tommy's the real deal. Said he'd put a word in for him. Seems to think his military background'll get him the job. If anything, it'll help him out in the physical training side of things."

I'm trying to imagine Soda in a burning building, a church on fire, but only Johnny's shrieks fill my head. I swallow him down. "You think they'd be cool with someone who has a record?"

"I was honest with him. Told him Soda's had a little trouble in town, but he's clean now." I still can't believe we have any reason to use the words "clean" and "record" when talking about Soda. "Tom said if they checked out everybody's education and criminal background on this side of town, they'd never fill half their roster. Long as he passes the random drug tests, it shouldn't be a problem."

Darry spits into an old Nehi bottle and stares hard at the collected pool of brown tobacco juice, as if it might hold all the answers, like tea leaves. "Shit, maybe it'll be something that helps keep him straight. Be good for him. I don't know." Now he's looking at me. Searching my face. "What do _you_ think Ponyboy?"

He wants my opinion. But he needs me to say it might work. And it might. If Soda were to truly save somebody, he might end up saving himself. "Guess it wouldn't hurt to tell him 'bout it."

I give Darry an encouraging nod, but I'm still flinching at the first mention of fire.

* * *

She's out of the sheets even before my dick's had time to cool, and I watch the ripple of her ribs through her skin when she stretches for her shirt, her mind already off and running. It's the fourth time I've had her during our separation, the second time this week alone, and I lay back easy in the comfort of those numbers, my hands up on the pillow and clasped behind my head. Far as I'm concerned, we're as good as back together.

"When's your lease up babe? We oughta look for somethin' outside the city limits. We could maybe get a little duplex that's got some kind of a yard for Grip, ya know?" I've never had trouble pushing my plans.

She grabs her hair to pull out of the neck of her oversized sweater and shakes her head to settle it into place. The look she gives me is disbelief mixed with impatience.

"Lord Soda," and she doesn't put on her panties when she walks toward the hall, "I'm nowhere near gettin' a new place." Grip's babbling away out there in his playpen and I realize she's shut me out by her word choice.

"Whadya mean ' _I'm_ '?" and I raise up with my loaded question but she's long gone. Like always, she's got me zero to sixty, and I start after her but go back for my pants, cause I don't know how serious she'd take me when I'm naked as a jaybird. Pulling up my jeans, I have time to calm down and play it cool, like I'm not desperate. And I'm not.

I casually walk into the living room, and smile to find her nursing. I've missed seeing that. I lie on the couch and stay quiet, just soaking in the peace, hearing the little sounds and sucks and grunts of my little boy as he's falling into the zen-like depths of a sleepy milk oblivion. Glory carries him back to his crib to put him down and I hear her start up her bathwater, and it's right now in this lazy afternoon sunlight when I realize I _am_ desperate. I'm panicked with so much to lose.

I'm trying to pull it together, figure out the best way to tell her she has to stay, that divorce ain't no option, and she'll be mine and I'll be hers and we can have another kid or two, and the phone ringing cuts my train of thought. I don't even remember this ain't my house when I automatically answer.

There's a hesitation, and finally a man's voice. "...uh yeah is Gloria there?"

"She ain't here, who the hell is this?" I keep my voice down low but threatening all the same.

"Listen pal, I don't know what's going on, or who the hell you are, but lemme talk to Glory." _Glory?_ He's got some nerve calling her Glory.

"I'm her husband, that's what's goin' on. Stay the fuck away from her. She's married." And I hang up the phone and stare at it, breathing heavy, waiting for him to call back, thinking about ripping the phone out of the wall.

"Soda, who was that?" I'm jarred by her presence, jerking around to see her naked with only a towel turban, and I will myself to act normal.

"Nobody hon, wrong number," and I'm taken over by that smoothness that somehow comes to save me in every one of my deceptions. "And sorry I answered your phone, I wasn't even thinkin'."

She looks at me a little too long before she says, "It's okay," and she wraps herself in her silk robe and lets her hair fall out of its towel.

"Listen, Soda," and I can already tell where she's going, and I brace for the sting, "I know you got all these plans and I'm...I'm sorry. But hell, you know marriage was never for us. We're better apart. I mean God, look how good it's been between us lately." There's a purr in her voice, but then the claws come out. "But, baby, just cause we're fuckin' doesn't mean I wanna stay married."

There's a madness that's waking up. My jaw steels against my words. "I get it, no really, I do." It's on. I can't help myself. I'm on fire. "But just cause we're separated don't mean you get to fuck anyone other than me." It's now all starting to make sense and I almost laugh at what a fool I've been. "Is that why you went out and got yourself an IUD? No wonder you been spoutin' all that free love bullshit." And there I was thinking she got it for us, so only I could come inside her.

She freezes a split second then ties her robe as tight as she is wound. "Not that it's your damn business," and she gets that finger in my face, "this is my body, not yours."

"Oh Jesus spare me, I ain't some chauvinistic prick. Don't pull the Women's Lib card as some excuse to whore around. Or break up a family just to prove you can make it out there on your own. Don't do that to Grip. He don't deserve that."

"You're the one who did this to Grip, Soda. Not me." And now she's screaming. "You're the one who left, you're the one who was never there to begin with, I loved.." and she dissolves on the word and cracks open right in front of me. All of my anger is extinguished by her pain. And I take her in my arms. I can't believe she lets me.

"Shh, I love you Gloria. I promise I'll be good to you. I'm gonna make us good. Hey, did I tell you I got my sights set on maybe being a fireman?" and I hadn't even said yes when Darry told me about it, but today, I throw it out there like dice. To keep her. It's a respectable and steady job. Why not? "Just lemme take care of you Gloria." She tries to pull away, and I know it's wrong but I don't let her go. And the more she struggles in my arms, the harder my hold. And only when she whimpers, do I finally set her free. The madman inside me settles back into place.

"See?" and she shoves me in her rage. "That right there." She slaps her hand against my chest and looks up at me with eyes that burn with hatred. "That's exactly why I won't be married. To you or anyone else. I won't be controlled. You just want control over me. And you'll never get it Soda. Never." She walks back to the bedroom and my shirt and shoes come sailing down the hall. I reach to catch one of them. "Get the hell out," and she slams the door. On me and everything I wanted.

I'm numb when I slide on my shirt and I leave it open, unable to button it, numb when I pick up my shoes and sit on the chair to slip them on, but I just end up staring at my bare feet. And thinking about all the times where I went wrong. Grip's cries are fading and she's finally settled him again.

Now I'm gonna have to prove I have complete control over my life, while also proving I don't have any desire to control hers. But isn't there a huge difference between taking control of and taking care of someone? Gloria seems to think they're one and the same. And now I'm the bad guy for wanting her to stay. Somehow staying with me is the equivalent of holding someone back. I guess it's always been this way.

I head for her room, moving on repentance alone, my shirt flapping open on its sorry breeze. Doesn't she know I'm willing to give her everything? I surrender the win, the control, the cards. She turns at the sound of the door, surprised. "What are you still doing here?"

I don't answer, a wordless walk towards her. I can tell she's a little fearful but too proud to move from her place. If she'd just read me she could tell I'm only here to submit. I get on my knees and look up at her beautiful face that's so far above me. "I'm sorry," is whispered, but not because it's hard to say. It's easy when you mean it. "I know you're strong. And I don't gotta take care of you cause I know you can do it all by yourself." I can tell she likes me in this position. I catch the flash of a predatory spark behind her eyes when she looks down on me. I recognize it as my own. I refuse to say she can fuck who she wants, but I drop my head and compromise. "And of course your body's none of my business. But you can have mine. I'm yours. You can have me, use me anytime." There, it's all out there, all of me spread out on the floor for her to walk on. To do with it what she wants. And there's a kind of freedom in being vulnerable and losing. Especially to someone like Gloria.

She allows me to open her robe and I hold the sides of her waist to steady myself. And I slowly, tenderly kiss the most intimate part of her. I use my tongue to tease and explore her, lifting my eyes up to watch her from beneath my lashes, to remind her how I'm on my knees. I try and hold her gaze and that's all it takes for her to throw her head back and grab onto my hair. And I'm hungry for the taste of her, and I go in deep and find a rhythm and I'm feeling her come and she's lost all control and wouldn't you know it, it's all come back to me.

I stand up to leave her there, my soon-to-be ex wife. I lick her off my wet lips, just like I got tupelo honey dripping off my tongue.

 **A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton

 _*The 'Mod Squad babe' Soda's referring to is actress Peggy Lipton, who coincidentally and very sadly passed away yesterday._

 _*Both Mod Squad babe and Soda speak of Tupelo honey, a real honey of high grade quality, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say I was inspired instead by Van Morrison's song Tupelo Honey, and stole the phrase from him, as I've always loved the southern-ness of the expression, "sweet as Tupelo honey."_

 _*The Recondo school that Soda and the Vet discuss was an actual school in Nha Trang for LRRPs, training them on everything from map reading to ambush techniques to first aid to weaponry. The students' last lesson in order to graduate was based literally on their survival of it. Essentially forcing each soldier to have to bet his life, giving rise to their phrase "You Bet Your Life", when referring to Recondo. Which is the reason behind Soda's answer to the Vet and subsequently, their laughter. The school shut down in December 1970, and though I've done a tiny bit of research on it, most of my future writing on Soda's experiences there will steer away from historical accuracy into complete fiction, simply to fit the needs of my plot._

 _*Thank you to those who read, fave, follow and review. :) And Happy Mother's Day!_


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